EDITORS NOTE: This story is EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, NOV. 18, 1999. Do not use before this date.

Oklahoma's Open Records laws, hailed nationwide as a model for access to public information, hide at least one dark little corner where sunshine rarely reaches.
In fact, it's against the law to even talk about what happens there. Those who dare can be thrown in jail for as long as six months and fined as much as $1,000.
This dark corner is embodied in a little-known law called "deferred prosecution." It allows a district attorney to act as prosecutor, judge and jury, then mandates that both the DA's office and the accused must keep the facts secret.
The law was passed in 1979 on grounds it would help rehabilitate qualified defendants and relieve prison crowding.
Deferred prosecution has been touted as a way to divert deserving young people, athletes, military personnel or law enforcement officers accused of drug or alcohol offenses from the criminal justice system.
Because of the law's restrictions, records on how deferred prosecution has actually been used in the past 20 years are hard to get. But a study by an Oklahoma Press Association Task Force indicates its use has not been limited to "soft crime." District attorneys have turned to deferred prosecution in cases of fraud, domestic violence, concealing stolen property, burglary, misuse of public funds, child abuse, rape and other sexual misconduct.
Some opponents point to a few known instances and conclude that the law is being used to offer "sweetheart deals" to public officials accused of wrongdoing.  They can pay a "fee" to enter the program, which lets them stay out of jail and avoid embarrassing stories in the newspaper. And, since records are sealed from the beginning, they can honestly say they have never been convicted of a crime.
Deferred prosecution also is used in other states although not all have the same strict confidentiality requirements.
Jim Pauley of the National Prosecutor Association in Arlington, Va., said the practice seems to be growing: "kind of in the scheme of drug courts and looking at other ways" to divert people from the criminal justice system.
Robert George of Mount Vernon, Mo., past president of the Missouri Prosecutor's Association, said he has used it in cases of domestic violence, "where we have a recalcitrant witness and it's the only way we're going to get the guy into treatment."
The 1979 Oklahoma law was authored by former Senator Robert Murphy, D-Stillwater. In its infancy, the deferred prosecution program was described by University of Oklahoma law professor Robert E.L. Richardson as "in all likelihood, the most comprehensive of any such program in the United States."