AUGUST 2026 | 31 THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. AN AUDIT STUDY OF CRAIG COUNTY To test these hypotheses about why Oklahoma prosecutors file tax stamp charges, we focused our attention on Craig County. Craig County has an estimated population of 14,115 people in 2020, which makes it the 48th largest county in Oklahoma.11 Interstate 44 runs through the southern part of the county. Yet Craig County saw 328 tax stamp filings during the period between 2015-2025, the second-highest number of such filings of any county. Moreover, of the 159 total drug felony cases in 2021, 55 (or more than one-third) involved a charge of tax stamp. For each Craig County case involving a tax stamp charge between 2017 and 2021,12 we utilized data from the Oklahoma Supreme Court Network to identify whether there were other drug charges and, if so, which ones, and whether the defendant served time on the tax stamp charge(s). We also noted whether any sentence served on tax stamp charges was distinctive or whether it was duplicative (for example, a sentence served concurrently to another/ longer drug sentence, a deferred sentence, or a suspended sentence). This information would help assess whether tax stamp charging patterns are consistent with the substitution hypothesis or the revenue generation hypothesis. Based on our analysis, the patterns of charging and conviction in Craig County are more consistent with the revenue generation hypothesis than the substitution hypothesis. Of the 139 Craig County cases between 2017 and 2021 for which we obtained court records, 136 of them involved a more serious drug charge such as PWID or trafficking. These results suggest that tax stamp charges were a tag-along to more serious felony drug charges, rather than a substitution for misdemeanor charges of simple possession. Our study also provided data about the resolution of tax stamp cases in Craig County. Of the 138 Craig County cases between 2017-2021 that involve a tax stamp charge, 27 have been dismissed, 17 involve a sentence or term that is consecutive to another sentence, and 84 involved a sentence to be served concurrently to the sentence for a more-serious drug charge. For this latter category of cases, the defendant convicted of the tax stamp offense will not serve any distinctive time for that offense. In only 14 cases was a defendant convicted of tax stamp charges and sentenced to any distinctive time for that charge. Eleven of these 14 cases involved a sentence that was either deferred (under which a defendant is released from custody and given the chance to complete probation before a certain date) or suspended (which the defendant is allowed to serve outside of the prison system). In other words, of the 138 tax stamp charges, only three resulted in the defendant serving a specific sentence of incarceration for the charge.13 These results are more consistent with the revenue generation hypothesis than the substitution hypothesis. In Craig County, tax stamp convictions rarely result in any distinctive incarceration. However, each of these convictions resulted in approximately $400 in court costs, and the most common fine associated with tax stamp convictions was $500. In addition, those convicted of tax stamp charges are required to pay a supervision fee to the district attorney if they are released on probation. Based on these figures, we estimate that tax stamp charges in Craig County resulted in well over $2 million in assessments of legal-financial obligations to defendants since 2017. Moreover, while more-serious drug charges were routinely reduced through the plea-bargaining process (for example, from aggravated trafficking to trafficking, or from trafficking to PWID), we found only seven cases from Craig County during the relevant period in which the tax stamp charges was specifically resolved through plea bargaining. By way of comparison, consider the tax stamp filings in Cimarron County and Beaver County. Cimarron County, in far western Oklahoma, is the smallest county in Oklahoma, with an estimated population of 2,059 in 2025. Nearby Beaver County had an estimated population of 4,882 in 2025.14 In Cimarron and Beaver Counties, tax stamp charges are filed much less frequently than in Craig County: 49 in Cimarron between 2015-2025 (43 of which were charged after the passage of SQ 780 in 2016) and 23 in Beaver. Moreover, there’s a different pattern to resolving tax stamp cases in these counties than in Craig County. In both Beaver County and Cimarron County, tax stamp charges were much more likely to be dismissed through plea bargaining and also more likely to result in distinctive sentences of incarceration.15 These results suggest that courts in Beaver County and Cimarron County were much more likely to both dismiss tax stamp charges and to sentence defendants
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