Channel 9 ran a story on one of the mass release convicts and while they admitted the guy had some previous convictions the story was all about a “second chance” for this convict that was facing another nine years in prison.
Meet Warren Rawls, career criminal and drug addict. His first adult arrest was in July of 2003 in Pottawatomie County for growing weed. About a year later he pleads guilty and gets a suspended sentence and $500 in fines plus D.A. Supervision. Four months later he has a violation report and a motion to revoke the suspended sentence is filed. Rawls agrees to go into a Clean Start Program but before he enters in December he is violating his parole again in November. He is sent to prison for five years by November 2005. About eight months later he is out on parole, by April of 2007 he has agreed to a payment plan on his fines and fees but two months later he was getting behind on his payments. By August of 2008 he was arrested for failure to pay and he bounces back and forth between agreeing to pay and not paying. To this day he owes much of the original 2003 fines and fees.
By 2008 while bouncing around between court dates on his first conviction Rawls is arrested again in Pott County, this time for misdemeanor charges, no license, no insurance, no seat belt. Pleds guilty, $646.00 in fines and costs, remains unpaid to this day.
In April of 2009 Rawls is arrested again for DUI and driving under supension, another set of misdemeanor. Arrested several times for non payment, Rawls posts bonds to get out, and the fines remain unpaid as of this writing.
By July of 2010 Rawls is arrested again driving on a suspended license. Once again he pleads guilty, is fined a few hundred, refuses to pay, and the fines remain unpaid.
In July of 2010 Rawls was also arrested for two counts of assault and battery domestic violence in the presence of a child. He pleads guilty, gets two years deferred sentence, is fined a few hundred, and agrees to 52 weeks of domestic violence programs. He owes around $1600 in fines and costs, gets a violation report two months later, gets his suspended sentence revoked, fails to appear in court, and bounces around between paying a bit and being arrested with the fines and fees still unpaid.
By November of 2010 Rawls has graduated to knowingly concealing stolen property. He pleads out to seven years suspended sentence and fines and costs, but gets an arrest warrant for failing to appear in community sentencing court one month later. By August of 2012 Rawls is sent to prison for seven years sentence. The fines and $1400 restitution remain unpaid as of this writing.
And Rawls had been making a living stealing copper it seems from his next arrest in August of 2011, he pleds guilty, gets three years in prison served concurrently with his other felonies. The fines and costs remains unpaid to this very day.
By February of 2015 Rawls is out of prison and being arrested for 2nd Degree burglary in Kay County. He is diverted into a program to keep him out of prison but by January 2016 his is busted for failing to appear in court. By June of 2016 he pleads guilty to five years suspended sentence with D.A. Supervision and fines and costs. Rawls agrees to pay $60.00 per month but a few month later he is back in court on revocation charges. By September of 2017 the court finds that Rawls is already in prison. The warrants and motion to revoke is stricken and Rawls is ordered to show up within thirty days of getting out of prison to make a new payment plan. Confident judge, eh? By January of this year Rawls is out but hasn't shown up to settle his debt with the court, but the charges are all dropped by September of this year. Rawls felony crime of 2nd degree burglary has been declared a misdemeanor so the charges were dismissed.
In December of 2015 Rawls was out of prison and was arrested in Mclain County for grand larceny, concealing stolen property, drug possession, and drug paraphernalia. Rawls earns 7 years on several counts, all served concurrently with the other sentences, and is ordered to report for supervision once he gets out of prison. By June of 2016 he is arrested again for no complying with his supervision and his suspended sentence gets revoked. He is sent to some sort of rehab program but by December of that year the rehab program admits that he isn't ready for a positive change so Rawls is arrested again and his sentence revoked. By January of 2017 Rawls is sentenced to five years in prison. Rawls now owes around $5400 for his stay in the Mclain County jail
But by August of 2018 Rawls is already out of prison and being arrested in Oklahoma County for selling meth. By February of this year Rawls is sentenced to 20 years, with the last ten years suspended but with Rawls under community supervision.
It is this sentence that Rawls was serving at the time that his sentence was commuted and he was released. In all likelihood he would have been out the next year if not for the mass commutation.
All that Rawls has ever had was second chances from the Oklahoma judicial system. And he has failed each and everyone of those chances within weeks of being released or has committed more crimes while out on the run or out on bail. Allowing this man out of prison is futile, he needs to be locked up til he is fifty years old at which time he might be able to survive out of prison and stay clean.
