How a Post-conviction Attorney Can Help You
So what exactly is a post-conviction attorney? Hi, I’m Oklahoma City Attorney Aaron Easton, and I’ll ask the question we have before us today. So, while many legal expressions can be a little ambiguous or confusing, a post-conviction attorney really is what it sounds like. It’s an attorney that can help or advocate on your behalf after you’ve received a conviction in Oklahoma.
So the question really is, what can a post-conviction attorney do for you? What areas can they help you out in? And really, there are numerous areas, and I’ll kind of touch on a few of those, a few of the most common ones.
Areas Where a Post-Conviction Attorney Can Help You
One of those that we get the most amount of calls about are expungements. You’ve been convicted in the past, perhaps you’ve already served your sentence, and it’s behind you, and for employment reasons or travel reasons, you need to get an arrest record expunged or a previous conviction expunged. That’s something we can help you out with.
Perhaps you or a loved one just went to trial, or, excuse me, even prior to trial, you made a plea. You agreed to a plea, bargained with a district attorney. And now you’re thinking maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, you’d like to have that plea withdrawn. That’s something we can help you out with as well, whether that’s just after the plea is made, or if we have to do a motion to withdraw a plea out of time, that’s something that a post-conviction attorney can help you out with.
Perhaps you’ve been convicted already, and you received a deferred sentence. And now the state of Oklahoma is accusing you of committing a new crime, and to do what’s called accelerate that deferred sentence. Well, that’s where a post-conviction attorney can also come in to help you out in that situation. Along those same lines, if you’ve been convicted and received a suspended sentence, and again, the state of Oklahoma is accusing you of committing another crime, and they’re trying to revoke that suspended sentence, send you to prison for that new crime, and bring back the conviction from the old crime, another area in which a post-conviction attorney can help you out.
Other Areas Where a Post-Conviction Attorney Can Help
Some more areas that are also common are us filing for a motion for judicial review for a sentence modification. There are different statutes that govern whether the sentence you were sentenced to was within the last 60 months or within the last 12 months. Different rules apply, but either one of those are areas in which a post-conviction attorney can help you out as well.
For those who are currently in prison and are eligible for parole, it’s often a really good idea to have an attorney on your side to speak on your behalf in front of the partner parole board at those parole hearings. As you know, you get precious little time to advocate for yourself to be released on parole, and it’s best to have an expert legal advocate there on your behalf for those. So again, something a post-conviction attorney can help you out with.
Also sentence commutations, sometimes those get confused with pardons, but what a sentence commutation really is, is shortening a sentence because the original sentence was unconstitutional or especially harsh. So that’s something that also goes through the partner parole board and would have to be approved by the governor. Along those same lines, I just mentioned it, but a gubernatorial pardon, meaning you were pardoned for the crime by the governor of the state of Oklahoma. Really this is like a forgiveness for a crime for which somebody has been sentenced and has shown repentance for, and the state of Oklahoma pardons you for that crime.
And then lastly, one of the most common areas in which my firm is retained to help individuals in a post-conviction setting is for an application for post-conviction relief, and that’s what’s known as a collateral attack against your sentence. You can claim either legal innocence, something during the process of your trial and or appeal was in violation of your constitutional rights, perhaps you didn’t have a proper due process and you’re claiming legal innocence, again, something we can help you out with. Or what a lot of people hear about in the news, convictions that are overturned due to actual innocence, whether that be some newly discovered evidence, DNA perhaps, or a number of reasons that would deem you in the category of actually being innocent of the crime you’re convicted for, you do have a right in the state of Oklahoma to apply for that collateral relief under an application for post-conviction. There are statute of limitations on those things, and so it’s really the kind of thing, if you feel like it may be the right path for you, that you really should look at talking to somebody as soon as possible, and again, you might have guessed it, that’s something that a post-conviction attorney can help you out with.
Get a Initial Consultation with Us
Today, what we did was answer those questions for you, what a post-conviction attorney does. As you can see, there are a lot of areas of law that a post-conviction attorney can be helpful in, and so if you think that one of these might pertain to you, reach out to us at postconviction.lawyer to see what we can do to help you out today.