Tyesha Long, originally sentenced to 27 years in prison, is the latest Oklahoman to file for resentencing under the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act.
Attorneys for the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice filed Long’s case on Tuesday afternoon at the Oklahoma County Courthouse.
Executive director of the center Colleen McCarty said Long is a “poster child” for the Survivors’ Act because there is significant evidence of her abuse.
Enacted in 2024, the law mandates courts revisit sentencing decisions for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, considering the circumstances of their abuse.
Courts are permitted to impose a new, lesser sentence after a hearing if it’s determined a defendant was a victim of domestic violence at the time of the offense and the violence was significantly related to and contributed to the offense. During the hearing, courts can hear witness testimony from both parties, review relevant evidence and consider both oral and written arguments.
Long was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter for the Nov. 4, 2020 killing of Ray Brown. The filing for Long’s case documents a turbulent, on-again-off-again relationship between the two that began when Long was 17 and Brown was 53.
Long had obtained a protective order against Brown in Oklahoma County more than a year before the shooting. She obtained the VPO after she told police they had argued and he had punched her.
Documents submitted in her case for resentencing include screenshots of text messages between Long and Brown discussing a miscarriage after she was thrown down a flight of stairs. There are also photographs of bruising on Long’s neck from being choked. McCarty said Long had memories of being strangled to the point of losing consciousness at least two times.
“He has protective orders from different women going all the way back to 1999,” McCarty said. “None of that was able to come into her trial, so it couldn't validate her experience with him.”
McCarty said the women who filled those protective orders cited fears similar to Long's.
“I feel like even though the goal isn't to make the victim look bad,” she said, “it is to show that her fear of him was credible and that he had patterns of this type of behavior in the past.”
Oklahoma Appleseed is working pro bono on behalf of many domestic abuse survivors in Oklahoma, and Long’s case is the 12th the center has filed. McCarty said attorneys are working on five more right now, and over 50 cases have been put into a category for further review following the discovery of more evidence.
In January, Lisa Moss was the first person to be released from prison under the act after a ruling from a Seminole County judge.
“I just think for a long time, we've been a ‘lock them up and throw away the key’ type of state, and this allows us to kind of be a little bit more thoughtful about how long someone has to serve,” McCarty said.
Under the Survivors’ Act, a person’s sentence must be reduced to 15 years or less. Long, currently incarcerated at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, has served five years, including the time she spent in jail before being convicted.
