Welcome to The Pickup’s first-ever news roundup! Twice a week we’ll gather the most relevant reading/watching/listening from around Tulsa and the surrounding region for you. Now let’s get to it.
Lisa Moss made history earlier this month when she became the first survivor of abuse to have her criminal sentence reduced under the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act. Moss walked free from the Seminole County Courthouse January 8, after serving 34 years in prison on a sentence of Life Without Parole.
The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act allows victims of domestic violence charged with crimes to request their sentences be lowered if they can prove that abuse contributed to their offenses. The law may be used in trials or retroactively for survivors serving their sentences. Moss’s sentence was reduced to 30 years.
The Norman Transcript published a thorough summary of the impact:
The case represents a significant shift in Oklahoma’s approach to criminal justice, particularly in cases involving domestic violence and abuse. The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, passed in 2024, requires courts to consider “clear and convincing evidence” of trauma and abuse as a mitigating factor in sentencing. If the abuse was a “substantial contributing factor” to a crime, the act mandates courts to reduce sentences according to suggested ranges.
Will more sentence reductions and early releases follow? We can certainly hope so. Oklahoma ranks poorly in both domestic abuse (over 65% of women incarcerated in Oklahoma have experienced either physical or sexual abuse, according to The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy group) and incarceration of women, so we’ve got a long way to go.
The reduction in Moss’s sentence is a small, historic step in the right direction. It also represents a major victory for OK Appleseed, the criminal justice nonprofit representing her.
Governor Kevin Stitt initially vetoed the bill in 2024, irking state senate pro tem Greg Treat so thoroughly that he had this to say about Stitt at the time:
“He either has no grasp of this policy or doesn’t care enough to get involved himself,” Treat said. “Whichever it is, it’s embarrassing, especially for our state that has such a high rate of domestic violence.”
Stitt later signed a revised version into law. –Matt Carney
Justice Department Concludes Tulsa Race Massacre Was A “Coordinated, Military-Style Attack,” Cites Heavily From Local Reporting
The Department of Justice has published the federal government’s latest attempt to reckon with the events of the Tulsa Race Massacre, recently outlined in the New York Times. Turns out that, when the massacre was first assessed by the feds in June 1921 , their agent found it to be “not the result of racial feeling.” Huh!
The summary of the review doesn’t tell us much that we didn’t already know, besides early attempts to downplay the massacre’s severity. It’s nice, though, to see a governmental codification of the idea that the violence was systematic and coordinated by Tulsa’s white citizens, rather than the outdated idea that it was “sudden” or “sporadic,” an argument sometimes used to place blame on Black Tulsans. I’m excited to dig into the specifics of the work, which purports to attempt to correct the record and allow for more specific litigation.
I’m hoping that this particular action won’t be another “too little, too late.” Attempts have been made to rectify that tragedy, but so far, zero dollars have ever been paid from a city, state, or federal entity towards reparations to Tulsa’s Black Wall Street. It should happen sooner rather than later. –Z.B. Reeves
And in other local news worth your time:
- Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel went to Vernon AME Church for local response to the DOJ’s report on the massacre
- The Department of Transportation awarded the Cherokee Nation $10.7M for electric vehicle charging ports
- Notable bigot Anita Bryant died
- Canoo filed for bankruptcy, taking $1M in state funds with it
- Will Rogers’ former home burned down in the LA wildfires
- Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is running for governor
- The Tulsa City Council voted 8-1 to replace its opening invocation with a moment of silent prayer or personal reflection
- The Frontier got into a spat with the Tulsa Police Department over an open records request about more than 200 surveillance cameras in place around the city
- Local actor Josh Fadem shared his story working with acclaimed director David Lynch on Twin Peaks: The Return. Lynch died last week at the age of 78.
In the interest of full disclosure, Vince LoVoi is on the board of OK Appleseed and also the chair of This Land Press. Also, Matt is married to Margaret Black, who is a licensed professional counselor and served as expert witness in Lisa Moss’s hearing.
