In Faulkner v. State, the appellant was convicted by a jury in Okfuskee County of Child Sexual Abuse and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. On appeal, he raised multiple claims of error, including that his former attorney improperly investigated and prosecuted him in a substantially related matter, violating due process due to a conflict of interest under the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals found plain error because the former counsel had access to confidential information from prior guardianship proceedings involving the appellant and the complaining witness, creating an impermissible risk under Rule 1.9 that this information would be used adversely. The court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial, requiring disqualification of any prosecutors with protected information from the case, and rendered the remaining propositions moot.
The case involved Brian Hayden Harney's appeal from his convictions in Nowata County for felony driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a revoked license, stemming from a single-vehicle rollover accident where he was found to have consumed alcohol and refused a blood test. Harney raised multiple claims of error, including improper jury instructions on lesser offenses and punishment range, admission of his full driving record, and prosecutorial misconduct. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions, finding that while errors occurred in the admission of the driving record and the punishment instruction, they did not deprive him of a fair trial on guilt, but required remand for resentencing due to the cumulative effect of those errors.
In Anderson v. State, the appellant appealed his jury conviction in Stephens County District Court for driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs after two or more prior felony convictions, for which he received a ten-year prison sentence and $5,000 fine to run consecutively to another sentence. He raised twelve propositions of error on appeal, including challenges to the chain of custody for blood evidence, sufficiency of the evidence, use of an expired test kit, admissibility of horizontal gaze nystagmus test results without scientific foundation, jury instructions on burden of proof, other crimes evidence, statutory vagueness, timing of the blood draw, ineffective assistance of counsel, and excessiveness of sentence. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the claims under standards such as plain error for unpreserved issues, sufficiency of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, abuse of discretion for evidentiary rulings, and statutory compliance, finding no reversible errors in any proposition and affirming the judgment and sentence.
The case involved Michael G. Burgess, the elected Sheriff of Custer County and a member of a drug court team, who was convicted by a jury in Major County of multiple offenses including engaging in a pattern of criminal offenses, sexual battery, bribery by a public official, kidnapping, forcible oral sodomy, and second-degree rape. These charges arose from Burgess's sexual exploitation of two female drug court participants by threatening their program termination or offering favorable treatment in exchange for sexual acts, along with related misconduct in urinalysis testing and transport. The trial court imposed the jury's recommended sentences, which included terms of imprisonment and fines running largely consecutively. On appeal, Burgess raised claims of insufficient evidence at preliminary hearing and trial, improper jury instructions that allegedly relieved the State's burden of proof, and excessive sentences, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the record and determined that the evidence was sufficient, the instructions accurately stated the law without plain error, and the sentences were within statutory ranges and not excessive, leading to affirmance of the judgment and sentences.
In State v. Sittingdown, the defendant was charged with two counts of unlawful possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute near a school, based on evidence obtained when deputies serving a civil writ of execution asked him to empty his pockets, revealing drugs, followed by a drug dog alert, vehicle search, and a search warrant for a nearby bar. The magistrate suppressed the evidence and dismissed the charges, finding the deputies exceeded their authority under the writ, and the district court affirmed. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, holding that the exclusionary rule does not apply to suppress evidence from a seizure pursuant to a civil writ if officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on the writ and abided by its terms, even if the writ is later deemed invalid or the scope questionable, as the purpose of the rule is to deter police misconduct which was absent here.