According to Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed.), a statute is a "law passed by a legislative body; specif., legislation enacted by any lawmaking body, including legislatures, administrative boards, and municipal courts." Statutes within a jurisdiction are compiled and organized by topic through a process called codification.
Related LibGuide:
Free Resources
Oklahoma State Courts Network (OSCN): online resource for the Oklahoma Constitution and statutes, which can be searched or browsed. Each statute is citationized, and some have links to applicable historical laws. Session laws from 1998 to the present are also available on OSCN.
Oklahoma State Legislature: includes the Oklahoma Constitution, statutes, legislative bill tracking information, copies of all versions of bills including committee reports, daily agendas, meeting notices, calendars, and an array of useful information. This information is available on the website earlier than it is available in hard copy.
Subscription Resources (Current students should access these databases through the Law Library Databases page.)
Oklahoma statutes are available with annotations and varying coverage of legislative history materials in Westlaw and Lexis platforms. The Oklahoma Constitution is also available on all three platforms.
Oklahoma Bar members have free access to FastCase, which allows the user to search or browse Oklahoma statutes.
*Remember that commercial sites usually do not have the official versions of the statutes, and so they should not be cited to. Check the official version of the statutes for any changes to the text and always cite to the Okla. Stat. Tit., not the Okla. Stat. Ann. Tit.
There are two different print resources for Oklahoma statutes. (Both can be found at the Chickasaw Nation Law Library.) As with the federal statutes, each has something different to offer the researcher.
Oklahoma Statutes Annotated is the unofficial version and provides the researcher with relevant case law and other editorial enhancements for each statute (green cover).
Oklahoma Statutes is the official version of the Oklahoma statutes (red cover).
Anyone can create an account on the official website of the Oklahoma Legislature to track bills through the Legislative Electronic Notification System (LENS). E-mail notifications are sent for selected bills as they move through the legislative process.
In addition, the Oklahoma Journal Record produces a Legislative Report featuring "real-time legislative tracking and intelligence."
Legislative history information from 1993 to the most current closed session is available through Oklahoma State Legislature Bill Tracking Reports. The Oklahoma Legislature has been working to include more Oklahoma Legislative History information online.
Oklahoma City University Law Library maintains a collection of all Oklahoma session laws, statutes, and legislative materials; call numbers can be found by using the catalog. A user guide for researching Oklahoma legislative history is located here. Please see a reference librarian if you need assistance.
