Interpreting Oklahoma criminal laws: the devil, or salvation, can be in the details If you should ever curl up with your favorite volume of Oklahoma’s criminal statutes, you might find that parts of it can be difficult to read. This is understandable; the laws are frequently written by people who are themselves lawyers, or who…
Although it may seem so at times, police generally do not initiate DUI traffic stops for no reason or for arbitrary reasons. The best advice to avoid being pulled over for any vehicle-related stop remains, “Don’t give them a reason.” If you do get pulled over and the police officer suspects you of drunk or…
There are some kinds of crimes that might be argued to be “victimless” – meaning, contrary to violent crimes or property crimes in which others are injured or their possessions are stolen, a victimless crime is one in which no one (except perhaps for the alleged perpetrator) is harmed. Prostitution is one such supposedly victimless…
You may have heard people discussing criminal court cases in which the defendant was either acquitted at trial or on appeal had his conviction reversed based on what is colloquially known as a “technicality.” This usually refers to the defense attorney persuading the trial or appeals court that because the arresting officer or someone else…
Drunk driving has long been the subject of criminal laws in every state, and for understandable reasons: the negative effect of alcohol on driver judgment, reaction times, alertness, motor skills and more often lead to tragic and entirely unavoidable consequences for the drivers themselves, their passengers, other motorists and pedestrians. A logical outgrowth of anti-drunk…
