Indeterminate Sentence Archives

F-2005-1094

Post author:Staff
Post published:March 28, 2007
Post category:F

In OCCA case No. F-2005-1094, #x appealed his conviction for #y. In a published decision, the court decided to reverse his conviction and remand the case for a new trial. #n dissented. Charles Arnold Fields was found guilty of delivering a controlled drug after having been convicted of felonies before. The jury gave him a sentence of 15 years to life in prison and a big fine. Fields did not like his representation during the trial, and he wanted to fire his lawyers. But the judge told him he could either continue with his lawyers or represent himself with them helping him. The case had three main issues. The first one was about whether Fields gave up his right to have a lawyer in a way that was clear and fair. The second issue questioned whether his long sentence was okay. The last issue looked at whether the judge made a mistake by not allowing Fields to challenge some evidence. The court found that Fields did not really ask to represent himself, and the judge did not explain to him the problems that could arise from not having a lawyer. Because of this, the court said he deserved a new trial. Since they decided on the first issue, they did not need to look into the other two issues. The court's final decision was to cancel the previous judgment and send the case back for a new trial.

RE 2005-0315

Post author:Staff
Post published:May 16, 2006
Post category:RE

In OCCA case No. RE 2005-0315, #Matthews appealed his conviction for #Burglary. In a (published) decision, the court decided #to vacate the two-year sentence imposed in CF-1999-365, affirm the acceleration of the deferred sentence in CF-2003-14, and affirm the termination from Drug Court. #None dissented. Kevin Paul Matthews got into trouble with the law a while back. He pled no contest to a charge for running a roadblock and was given a sentence where he didn’t have to spend much time in prison right away. Instead, he was supposed to follow certain rules and help the community. However, he later messed up by not completing his required community service. Then, he got into even more trouble and pleaded guilty to burglary, agreeing to join a special program called Drug Court instead of going straight to prison. This program was meant to help him get better. But after some time, the State said he wasn’t following the rules and asked the judge to send him to prison instead. The judge agreed and decided Matthews needed to go to prison for more time, ruling that any previous time he served didn’t count towards his new sentence. Matthews felt that the judge made mistakes and that he shouldn't have been punished as harshly as he was. Matthews brought his case to a higher court, saying the judge didn't have the right to put him back in prison for the earlier offense because too much time had passed. He also said the judge shouldn’t have made him wait so long without setting an end date to his drug treatment program. Ultimately, the higher court agreed that the judge had made an error in punishing Matthews without accounting for the time he had already served. However, they kept the part where Matthews had to go to prison for his burglary charge because he had failed to follow the rules of the Drug Court. They decided to send the case back to the lower court for more review about what should happen next. So, in the end, Matthews got relief on some of his issues, but not all, showing that while he had some rights, he still needed to take responsibility for his actions.