What is a sounding docket

TULSA COUNTY

This section is tailored to criminal misdemeanor proceedings in Tulsa County although much of the information contained herein is also applicable to misdemeanor proceedings in other counties in Oklahoma.

OUTLINE OF MISDEMEANOR PROCEEDINGS

ARRAIGNMENT

After arrest, and charges are filed, the defendant will be given a date to appear in court. This initial court appearance is called the ARRAIGNMENT. The Arraignment is a very simple setting that I refer to as a “show up and say hi day”. The Arraignment is used by the court to inform the defendant of the crime that he/she has been charged with, and more importantly, to insure that the defendant is going appear. At arraignment the Judge will then enter a not guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf and set a new court date, which, in Tulsa County, is referred to as the Jury Trial Sounding Docket. The Jury Trial Sounding Docket setting will generally be within 30 days of the date of arraignment.

JURY TRIAL SOUNDING

The Jury Trial Sounding Docket setting, or JTS, is an important setting because it is the first setting that the defense has a chance to negotiate with the prosecution in an attempt to resolve the matter. From this point the case will go one of three direction: 1) Plea Bargain 2) Motion Hearing 3) Trial Date. The decision on which of these options to take should be made by the person charged only after being advised by their attorney; this decision is up to the person charged and them alone.

PLEA BARGAIN

Most misdemeanor charges are resolved through plea bargains. A plea bargain is agreement reached that provides a resolution of the case without the necessity of a trial. Plea bargains generally fall into one of four categories: 1) Straight Sentence 2) Split Sentence 3) Suspended Sentence 4) Deferred Sentence. (Please see SENTENCES for a description of the different type of sentences.) In some situations a plea bargain might not be the best option and that is when the case is set for either a Motion Hearing or Trial.

MOTION HEARING

A Motion Hearing is used when there is an aspect of the case that the defense feels needs to be ruled on by a judge. For example, the defense might request a Motion Hearing to suppress evidence that resulted from an illegal search. The Motion Hearing itself is a mini trial on a certain issue or issues. At this hearing testimony will be taken and the lawyers will make legal argument to the Judge who will rule on the issue. If the Judge rules in the defenses favor at this hearing the case may be dismissed, reduced to a lesser charge by the prosecution, or the prosecution could decide to pursue the case minus the evidence that was suppressed. If the case is dismissed the accused person is free to go. If the case is not dismissed the accused person has the option of entering into a plea bargain with the prosecution or setting the case for trial.

TRIAL

The TRIAL! Trial is composed of Jury selection, Opening Statements, Presentation of Evidence, Jury Instructions, Closing Arguments and Deliberation.

Jury Selection: Choosing a jury from a panel of individuals summoned for Jury Duty. This is done through a question and answer process known as Voir Dire.

Opening Statements: Statements made to the jury by both the prosecution and the defense that will outline the case for the jury.

Presentation of Evidence: This is what people generally think of as the trial. This portion involves the calling of witness and questioning of those witnesses by both the prosecution and defense

Jury Instructions: At this point the Judge will instruct the jury on the law that is applicable to the case. See Jury Instructions for a list of jury instructions in Oklahoma.

Closing Arguments: The Prosecution and Defense are able to argue their interpretation of the evidence to the jury at this time.

Deliberation: The Jury attempts to make a decision in the case.

TYPES OF SENTENCES

Straight Sentence: A Straight Sentence is when a defendant pleads or is found guilty, the court enters a finding of guilt (formally convicting the person of the crime), and the person is sentence to serve time in jail or prison (e.g. 1 year in county jail). In this situation the defendant will be taken into custody to serve out their sentence. This means that the defendant will actually do the time that he/she has been sentenced to under lock and key in a correctional facility. This is commonly referred to as "in time".

Split Sentence: A split sentences occurs when a defendant pleads or is found guilty, the court enters a finding of guilt (formally convicting the person of the crime), the defendant is sentence to serve time in jail or prison (e.g. 1 year in county jail) and the sentence is split between "in time" and probation. An example of this would be a defendant who is sentenced to 1 year in county jail with 6 months to be served in jail, “in time”, and the other six months is suspended and the defendant will do that time on probation. The court has split the sentence between time in jail and probation. Time spent on probation is commonly referred to as doing time “on paper” or “paper time”.

Suspended Sentence: A suspended sentence occurs when a defendant pleads or is found guilty, the court enters a finding of guilt (formally convicting the person of the crime), the defendant is sentenced to serve time in jail or prison (e.g. 1 year in county jail) and that time is suspended by the court allowing the defendant to do it on probation rather than in a jail cell.

Deferred Sentence: A deferred sentence occurs when a defendant pleads guilty and the court defers the finding of guilt for a set period of time (e.g. 1 year). This means that the court never enters a finding of guilt; instead the court withholds the finding of guilt during the defendant's probationary period. If the defendant successfully completes the probationary period the court will withdraw the defendant’s plea of guilty and dismiss the charges against him/her. The benefit of a deferred sentence is that a defendant has the ability to keep a criminal conviction off their record.

Video Transcribed: My name is Ryan Cannonie, I am the Tahlequah criminal defense attorney for Wirth Law Office in Cherokee County. We do everything from family and criminal to civil rights litigation up to if you have a medical marijuana issues.

But right now I want to talk about a situation I’ve kind of been doing some videos on in regard to the criminal justice process.

What can you be expecting? What’s the timeline, kind of what comes after? After you’re arrested what happens after that? So I’ve already talked about arrest. I’ve talked about bail or your bond actually. Bond’s, considered the actual money or what you pay.

Well in felonies and misdemeanors, they both have a situation where it’s, depending on your county, they call it different things. They call it a status docket, a disposition docket, a sounding docket.

Every county I’ve worked in which I was a prosecutor for seven years. So I worked in quite a few counties over in Northeast, Oklahoma.

Every one of them usually call it a different thing, but it all means the same thing. Basically, these are dockets for you and your attorney to go in and talk with the district attorney’s office, figure out what’s their case, what their stance is and work on a plea agreement.

Now, if you have an attorney representing you, a lot of times, they’ll go in prior to that docket on their own to the DA’s office, try and make an appointment with them, call them in some of the more rural counties, it’s a lot easier.

You just, you know the prosecutors, you just pick up your phone and call them. And talk about some type of plea or dismissal. Now, when you go into those dockets, your attorney’s going to have anything that they can use to try to whittle down your charges.

Meaning any evidence, victim’s not cooperative. I wasn’t even in the area, you weren’t even in the area at the time. Different things like that, that they can argue to get charges, hopefully dismissed.

But if not dismissed, then a better plea offer for you. And I saw this all the time. People came in and thought they could negotiate without an attorney.

And they ended up a lot of times with a lot more, either fines and costs, or sometimes more time on probation.

A difference in six months is a pretty big difference sometimes compared to people that had attorneys going in there pointing out different aspects of the law, different problems with the police reports, maybe problems with the evidence that the prosecutor it’s more hassle than it’s worth. Okay, we’ll reduce this down. We’ll get rid of this count. Different things like that.

The whole process is kind of a negotiation at this stage. And these dockets, you’re doing that. You’re also, at that time, maybe pleading, you might be filling out the plea paperwork with your attorney either that day, or hopefully prior to that.

What I like to do with my clients is bring them into the office. Even, this COVID things kind of messed with that, but for the most part, bring them in, go over their paperwork. And that way, when we go into court, we’re not going to a back room to fill stuff out and explain it.

It’s just, we walk in, I say, “Do you have any questions?” “Nope.” “Let’s get in front of the judge, and let’s both get out of here.” It’s a little more efficient and it’s a little quicker doing it that way.

But that’s what having an attorney helps with. It helps not only get you in and out quicker, hopefully, but it also helps you understand what’s going on. If you don’t have an attorney, that kind of depends on what county you’re in.

But a lot of times what’ll happen is you have to wait until the attorneys are done talking to the prosecutor because that’s who they’re going to talk to first.

Then after that, the prosecutor is just going to go down a list. When they get to your name, they’re going to give you a plea offer. Most of the time, they’re extremely busy.

They’ve got a lot of stuff on their plate. So they’ll give you a real quick rundown of it. Say, “Do you want this or not? Do you want more time? Do you want to talk to an attorney? What do you want?”

And you have to make a decision right there. If you want to take the offer, if you want to go talk and try to hire an attorney, or if you want to set it for a trial or a hearing. Now misdemeanors and felonies are basically the same onus, you’re going through kind of the same process.

The only difference is, is if you don’t want to take the state, the prosecutor’s offer on a misdemeanor, at that point, you’re setting it for either a jury or non-jury trial. That’s up to you. You get a choice there. If it’s a felony, you’re going to be setting it for what’s called a preliminary hearing.

And I’ll talk about those in a separate video. So, going in with an attorney is important because like I said, attorneys can negotiate down, get you a better plea offer.

In fact, in your waiver of attorney, if you go in and decide to do it on your own, you’ll notice there’s actually wording in a lot of those waivers that say, you’re waving an attorney, even though it’s possible, your attorney could have got you a better plea or even a dismissal.

That’s usually wording in some of those waivers to still let you know that, “Hey, this is … you’re on your own. You don’t know what you’re doing most of the time. So heads up.” So that’s what an attorney can do for you. Hopefully they can go in and they know the law and we know the law down here.

We’re very skilled in criminal defense work. We’ve worked in not just myself in this office, but we have the Tulsa office backing us up.

We have over a dozen attorneys up there that also are familiar with criminal law matters that have all this experience from attorneys to retired judges that can help you on your case. So if you need help, if you find yourself in a situation where you have criminal charges, then please give us a call. We can help.