McAlester News-Capital, McAlester, OK

Police/Courts

August 20, 2012

State prosecutors seek sanctions against drug court defendant's defense attorney

Senior Editor

McALESTER — Prosecutors with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office are asking a judge to impose civil contempt violations on a defense attorney for former District 18 Drug Court Coordinator Angie Marcum.

Oklahoma Assistant Attorneys General Charles Rogers and Megan Tilly have filed legal motions asking the court to impose the sanctions for what they allege are the defense attorney’s failure “to comply with her duty” to meaningfully make discovery disclosures required under Oklahoma’s Criminal Code.

Discovery disclosures in a legal sense basically refers to each side in a case providing the other side with a list of their witnesses and a summary of expected testimony from those witnesses, as well as a list of court exhibits or other evidence expected to be presented during a trial.

In their filings, the state prosecutors say the alleged discovery issues do not appear to be Marcum’s “personal doing.”

Instead, “it appears to be solely the conduct of her attorney that may be addressed through the court’s civil contempt powers to coerce compliance...” the state prosecutors contend.

Marcum, who is the former District 18 Drug Court Coordinator for Pittsburg and McIntosh counties, is accused in an Oklahoma Multicounty Grand Jury indictment unsealed in 2011 of embezzling public money and property, along with stealing, destroying or secreting a public book or record in the form of receipts for payments made by drug court participants.

The case had originally been set to go to trial Aug. 6, but Okmulgee County District Judge Ken Adair continued it after determining that neither the prosecution nor the defense was prepared to announce “ready for trial.”  The case is now expected to go to trial in October.

Adair was previously appointed to preside over the case after judges in Pittsburg County were recused from hearing it.

In the most recent court filings, prosecutors said that what they’ve received from the defense  so far amounts to a “witness list that does not provide a “significant summary” of the witnesses’ expected testimony.

As a result, the state has been unable to prepare for jury trial, prosecutors contend.

“The discovery disclosure currently provided by the defendant to the state is only marginally more informative than if no discovery had been made at all,” prosecutors say in their court motion.

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