MARCH 2026 | 45 THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL inspections. While in the program, the veterans are subject to random urinalysis and required to gain employment if able. One of the crown jewels of Tulsa County VTC is the mentor program. Veteran mentors are recruited and trained to serve the veterans while they are navigating the requirements of VTC. The mentors provide fellowship, rides, support and often just a phone call to their mentee veterans. VTC participants have reported rediscovering their pride for serving in the U.S. armed forces when they connected with their mentors. One Tulsa County VTC success story: John was a Tulsa-area Army combat engineer who deployed to Afghanistan, witnessed the calamities of war and returned stateside to bottle up the traumas he endured in his relatively short life. While still active in the National Guard, a bad decision led to a DUI for John. Tragically, this wasn’t only a DUI. The charges ultimately resulted in John entering a blind plea before a district judge and being sentenced to 20 years in the Department of Corrections on charges of manslaughter. John’s attorney argued for, and John was granted, a judicial review after serving three years in prison. He had no prior arrests. While John was incarcerated, his attorney approached the VTC team to consider accepting John into the program if the judge modified John’s sentence to a suspended sentence after incarceration. While drug and DUI courts in Oklahoma operate under Okla. Stat. tit. 22, §471, VTC does not. Without the constraints of a statute, VTC accepts participants into the program who would not be accepted into other alternative court programs due to objections from the state or statutory prohibition. The VTC team agreed to take a chance on John, and four and a half years after his conviction and incarceration, John graduated from Tulsa County VTC without a single violation. Treatment reported that John was totally unaware of a diagnosis 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.
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