Proper Range

In OCCA case No. F-2006-780, Roy Carl Bales, Jr. appealed his conviction for robbery with a firearm and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. In a published decision, the court decided to affirm Bales's conviction for robbery but modified his sentence for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle to three years in prison. One judge dissented. Bales was found guilty by a jury of committing robbery with a firearm and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The jury decided that he should serve twenty years for robbery and six years for unauthorized vehicle use, with both sentences running one after the other. Bales raised two main points in his appeal. The first point was about how the trial court instructed the jury on the minimum sentence for unauthorized use of a vehicle. Bales argued that the court made a mistake by not giving the jury the correct information on the punishment range. The second point was that the trial court should have made Bales's sentences run at the same time instead of back-to-back, which he thought was too harsh. After looking carefully at the details of the case, the court found a mistake in how the jury was instructed about the sentence. They decided that the minimum sentence for unauthorized use should be three years instead of six years. However, the court thought that the long sentence for robbery was appropriate given Bales's past criminal record, so they kept that sentence as it was. Ultimately, the court affirmed the robbery conviction and changed the unauthorized vehicle use sentence to three years in prison, making one judge disagree with the decision.