Misdemeanor Convictions
Hi. I’m Oklahoma City Attorney Aaron Easton and it’s a simple question we have for us today but not the simplest answer. So Title 22, Section 18 of the Oklahoma Statutes deals with the expungement of criminal records in Oklahoma and that deals with both expungement of arrest records and conviction records and a lot of Oklahomans have been convicted of misdemeanors in Oklahoma and they want to get those expunged understandably.
So there are many subsections in the statute I just referenced and they deal with how to get your record expunged depending on the circumstances of your case. Today we’re talking about specifically misdemeanor convictions so that would not include deferred sentences that’s covered in a different video. So today we’re talking about misdemeanor convictions specifically and that falls under two subsections of that title, both subsection 10 and 11 and there are some differentiation that I’ll talk about here real quick.
So if your misdemeanor conviction resulted in either a suspended sentence that you’ve now completed including the payment of any fines or it resulted in a fine of less than $500, you fall under subsection 10. If your misdemeanor conviction resulted in a term of imprisonment or a fine of greater than $500, you fall under subsection 11. Now there are a lot of similarities between those two but there is one important difference and I’ll get to that here in just a second.
Criteria for Expungement – Subsection 10 vs Subsection 11
Under either of those subsections you will one, have had to complete that in its entirety, either the term of imprisonment is complete, the fine is paid in its entirety, or the suspended sentence is completed again including any residual fines or whatever you have with that conviction. So after that criteria is met, under both subsections you will also not be eligible unless you have no previous felony convictions. So if you’ve got a previous felony conviction you’ll have to look under a different subsection and we’ll talk about that in a different video.
But if you have no previous felony convictions, you’ve completed your imprisonment or suspended sentence, you make it to the next element which is you cannot have any pending cases against you. No pending felony, no pending misdemeanor. So if all those criteria are met and you were under subsection 10, again that was a suspended sentence or fine of less than $500, then you qualify, that’s it. If you fall under subsection 11, which was the fine of greater than $500 or you were convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, then you have to meet one more criteria and that is that at least five years has had to have passed since you’ve completed that misdemeanor sentence.
Speak to an Attorney for a Initial Consultation
A lot of information there. If you’ve been convicted of a misdemeanor in Oklahoma and you want to see if you’re eligible for expungement, you’re going to want to speak to an attorney privately and confidentially about the specifics of your case and to do so with no charge with an attorney at my firm. You can reach us by phone at 405-888-5400 or online at postconviction.lawyer.