Broken Arrow City Council
Meeting of: 09-20-2016
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Office of the City Attorney
Title:
title
Presentation, consideration, and discussion on the City of Broken Arrow's Municipal Court, and possible action, including direction to explore transition from a Municipal Court Not of Record to a Municipal Court of Record
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Background:
House Bill 3164:
On April 27, 2016, Oklahoma's House and Senate passed House Bill 3146, set for enactment on November 1, 2016. The bill requires that all charges of Driving Under the Influence (DUI's) be prosecuted in a court of record. Under the bill, municipal courts must transfer DUI charges to the proper District Court in which a person could be prosecuted for felony drunken driving. The bill also creates a database that serves to inform officers and prosecutors about a person's drunken driving arrest record. All municipal courts in Oklahoma except Tulsa and Oklahoma City are not courts of record and therefore, DUI convictions in those jurisdictions cannot be used to enhance a subsequent DUI as a felony offense. In contrast, opponents argue the bill will decrease municipal funds and overload already saturated DUI caseloads in Oklahoma District Courts.
While the new bill does not address Actual Physical Control cases (APC charges), it will likely be included as APC and DUI charges are closely associated. In 2015, the City of Broken Arrow prosecuted 18 persons under the age of 21 for DUI and received $11,700.00 in fines from those cases. The City also charged 200 persons aged 21 over with DUI and received $130,000.00 in fines. Broken Arrow also charged 27 persons with APC and received $17,550.00 in fines. These totals do not include the underlying offenses that the defendants were charged with. For example, normally there is a traffic offense that accompanies DUI or APC charges and/or they are coupled with a no insurance citati...
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