Mayes County D.A. And Judge Burying Evidence in Felony Case
Monster Inc Opens a Branch in Mayes County
The latest in the Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning Sexual Molestation case is troubling. First Commissioner Hanning appears to have filed a motion to seal the record in a felony case where he isn't even a party to, neither defendant nor plaintiff, but he is a witness so that would be his reason to seal the case.
By now everyone is painfully aware of the case and the vast corruption that emanated out of Wagoner County. It started with a 2016 domestic violence case that even the original prosecutor said should have never been filed, a case that was not only over turned, it was voided by a Wagoner County judge.
Now void in the law has a very specific meaning. It means never existed. Not expunged. Not dismissed. It never existed at all. Once that is decided anything connected to the void case is rewound. Any money taken as fines or fees is returned. Any issues that came about due to the illegal or unconstitutional or non jurisdictional case is also void.
Yet a judge in Mayes County is not only continuing a felony prosecution that came about over a deferred prosecution decision in the original case, she is also allowing massive amounts of conclusive evidence to be stripped from the defense. We are talking about witness impeaching testimony and depositions, where the officers involved changed their stories in material ways. Even the fact that the original case was completely voided months ago and that the original prosecutor was caught on tape saying that the original charges were bogus and that the “victim” in the case was so crazy that they would have to call the SWAT team on him if he had to spend any time with her.
Commissioner Hanning filed a motion to seal the case at some point, the filing is not showing up on OSCN records but we do find a hearing ordered on February 2nd of 2021 on the matter. Hanning is probably desperate to stop another case being public record where the allegations of sexual molestation of his step daughter are filed as evidence and his alleged embezzlement and vendetta against Tyler Paulsen is presented. The felony case started off with a traffic stop in a small town in Mayes County which was quickly adjudicated by the city court system, ending with a plea of guilty and the payment of the fines and fees by the defendant in cash that very same day. Paulsen headed to DHS the next day it was open, renewed his license that had lapsed by three or four days, and he went back and retrieved his vehicle.
Then Commissioner James Hanning of neighboring Wagoner County heard about the traffic stop. Commissioner Hanning went to the small town, informed the court clerk that Paulsen wasn't allowed to possess the handgun that had been in the car when the car was impounded for the driver having a drivers license that was expired by a couple of days, leading the city court to dismiss the entire case AFTER it had been adjudicated. Why dismiss a case after it had been adjudicated and the fines and fees paid? So that Mayes County could file felony charges based upon the fiction that Paulsen was under DOC supervision and wasn't allowed to possess a gun.
Now none of this gun rights issue was in the original supervision filings in the 2016 case. Paulsen agreed to the plea because his gun rights were left intact. If there was another law or if the law had changed neither Paulsen nor the original prosecutor Wagoner County ADA Eric Jordan were aware of it.
Commissioner Hanning almost certainly colluded with Mayes County prosecutor ADA Tom Sawyer and D.A. Mathew Ballard to file the felony charges in an effort to accelerate the original 2016 plea deal and put Paulsen in prison where he cannot defend himself and continue the lawsuit against Commissioner James Hanning to recover the money and property that was embezzled.
These fraudulent charges were filled in April of 2018, nearly three years ago. On December 2nd of 2020 Paulsen's attorney filed a motion for dismissal quoting solid case history and law telling the judge that no criminal charge can flow from a voided case where there was never court jurisdiction. Mayes County D.A. Countered with their own motion, which had no serious or valid case law, and Paulsen filed back listing even more reasons why the case should be dismissed and objected to Mayes County D.A. attempting to quash evidence that would prove that there was cronyism involved in filing the charges and ample motivation for Commissioner Hanning to have Paulsen framed and railroaded.
Mayes County D.A. Mathew Ballard is attempting to have the following exculpatory evidence precluded from the criminal trail:
Emails from and to the Adair Police Department that proved that the Adair police officers changed their version of how they learned that Paulsen wasn't supposed to have a weapon in his possession and how his police report and his testimony at the preliminary hearing had changed radically. And how the Wagoner County D.A. Office faxed a six page fax without a cover sheet or acknowledgment in an attempt to disguise who was sending the fax. The fact that Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning traveled to Adair and falsely told the court clerk that Paulsen wasn't supposed to have a weapon would also be suppressed.
The fact that the original 2016 case and the Wagoner County motion to accelerate have been dismissed and declared void.
The fact of litigation between Paulsen and the Wagoner County D.A. over embezzlement of property and money.
The Sooner Tea Party articles talking about the taped conversation between the original prosecutor in the Wagoner County 2016 charges admitting that the Mayes County charges were retaliation and cronyism. This is where Eric Jordan admitted that the original charges in 2016 were bogus and politically motivated and how cronyism was responsible for the Mayes County charges being filed.
If all of this evidence is precluded from the trial Paulsen goes in with the deck stacked against justice. What is a slam dunk case of cronyism leading to retaliation and the forces of the state criminal justice system used to interfere in a civil embezzlement case because the defendant happens to be a County Commissioner is turned into a rail road job on an innocent man.
To understand criminal convictions you first go to the Uniform Jury Instructions and learn what elements of the case must be met before a conviction is allowed to occur. In OS 21-1283 which is the jury instructions for conviction of possession of a weapon after a felony conviction or while under probation one of the elements is the knowledge that a weapon is nearby. The law requires mens rea, or a guilty mind, meaning the defendant has to know there is a gun in his vicinity. By the same token he has to know that he isn't supposed to have a gun. After a felony conviction the defendant gets a set of instructions that tells him about the loss of gun rights; Paulsen never had his gun rights restricted so the D.A. never included that restriction on Paulsen's paperwork. In fact, there never was a conviction, it was a deferred conviction which never happened.
To understand what knowingly and willingly mean we have to go to OUJI-CR-6-16. Knowingly means being aware of the existence of facts that cause the act or omission to be criminal. You do not have to know the exact law that makes an act a criminal act but you do have to know it is a criminal act. Willingly means purposefully. So you would have to know what you are doing is criminal and do it on purpose.
Another element that must be proven is that there was a felony conviction which is impossible at this point as there never was a conviction as it was a deferred conviction, never happened, could have happened in the future, then voiding the entire 2016 case meant there is no longer anything left. Void, gone forever, never was there to begin with kind of void.
Void legally means having zero legal effect, ab initio which is Latin for “from their inception” which means they cannot have ever created legal consequences. An example would be a fine on a voided contract, if the contract was void there could never be a fine for non compliance with the contract. There is a voidable contract or right, where the court determines that a contract is void as of a certain date set by the court, usually at the decision.
And how can we be certain of this? Because the court order voiding the 2016 conviction not only said the conviction was ab initio, it said that the deferred sentence and probation/supervision order was ab initio. That is void from the filing of the 2016 criminal case, not from the order voiding the case in 2020.
Mathew Ballard wants to argue that the Wagoner County Judge over stepped his power but were that the case Ballard would be appealing the ruling, which of course is impossible as he lacks standing in the case.
One has to wonder what Commissioner James Hanning has on D.A. Mathew Ballard that he is trying so hard and breaking the law and committing an injustice to railroad this young man.
Another interesting thing about this case. At the hearing on the motions to dismiss the judge went beyond what the filings argued and quoted four cases that she claimed held her to not dismissing the felony possession gun charge. That is unusual in district court hearing, this isn't an appeal where the judges might spend months digging around case law, nearly all judges are going to read the filings and rule based upon what both sides give them.
The judge also confused herself on the difference between a voidable conviction and a conviction ab initio. She belabored the point that Paulsen could have filed for post conviction relief and had his conviction over turned back when it happened but waiting till after he was charged as a felon in possession of a weapon was too late. This goes back to the very nature of the 2016 case; there was no jurisdiction, the court had zero power to take the case, therefore everything that came after was not just voidable, it was void from the very beginning. An example is a case where a minor has signed a contract. Doesn't matter when the minor or former minor objects, what matters is that the law states that no minor can be held responsible to a contract. This is not a case where ineffective counsel caused a conviction or didn't give the defendant a fighting chance; it is a case that never had a legal basis to be heard due to a lack of jurisdiction.
