Editors' note: This article has been updated to accurately state facts about the Bever brothers and the legislative history of the Oklahoma Survivors' Act.
The Tulsa County District Attorney has clarified his stance on the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act after an advocacy group circulated a court form for the new law.
Passed this year, the Survivors’ Act allows victims of domestic violence charged with crimes to request their sentences be lowered if they can prove abuse contributed to their offenses. The law may be used in trials or retroactively for survivors serving their sentences.
A Tulsa County District Court form says defendants waive their ability “to raise a claim under the Oklahoma Survivor’s Act” during plea, later hearings and if they’re sentenced.
This form prompted Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice Director Colleen McCarty to accuse District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler of pressuring abuse survivors to give up their rights to the law. But Kunzweiler said in an interview with Public Radio Tulsa the form is meant to highlight if someone is in fact an abuse survivor.
“What we are doing is basically providing notification of those rights at the outset so the victim can be fully informed of what’s going to happen moving forward, that there’s no surprises that are going to be taking place here,” Kunzweiler said.
Kunzweiler said such forms are routine for updates to the law, and added that it does not waive rights for “true victims.” He also said prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges would be involved in the sentencing process.
A statement from the district attorney’s office said similar notifications were given out when sex and violent offender registries were enacted, and are given to migrants whose immigration statuses might be impacted by crimes they’ve committed.
McCarty — who helped get the Survivors’ Act passed — said she doesn’t feel comfortable with Kunzweiler determining if someone is an abuse survivor. She said attorneys should “believe survivors and work to validate and prove their experiences.”
She also said the comparisons misrepresent the law because they’re “negative consequences of taking a criminal conviction.”
“Getting to access the Survivors’ Act is something that’s supposed to help me. So they really have no business having people waive, because they have no way of knowing if someone will be eligible for the act. They’re just trying to get in front of it and stop defense attorneys from being able to use it properly,” McCarty said.
McCarty said she was happy to see Kunzweiler acknowledge the law, but claimed he “fought the very premise of the bill for two years.”
Kunzweiler said he’s obligated to uphold the law because he’s a prosecutor, but is concerned violent offenders could use it to lessen their sentences. In a statement, he referenced the Bever brothers, who in 2015 murdered their parents and three of their siblings in Broken Arrow. One of the brothers’ attorneys brought up that their father abused them during trial.
“I have concerns that surviving victim family members may also have to relive long ago emotional traumas associated with the deaths of their loved ones,” Kunzweiler said.
Kunzweiler also said he appreciates that members of the Oklahoma Legislature modified the original language of the bill to its current version.
The Oklahoma District Attorneys Association supported Gov. Kevin Stitt’s initial veto of the bill, which he claimed would “create a sword by which criminal defendants will fight the imposition of justice based on prior abuse.” Stitt eventually signed the bill into law after it was revised in the Legislature.
McCarty currently represents two women who hope to reduce their sentences with the new law.
