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After more than a decade in office, Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler is running on experience, stability and a record shaped by some of the county’s most high-profile cases.

Kunzweiler’s challenger in the June 16 Republican primary is Colleen McCarty. She’s running on a different argument — that Kunzweiler’s record is a reason for voters to choose a new direction.

At the center of the race is a fundamental divide over what the job of a district attorney should look like and what Tulsa County needs from its criminal justice system.

Kunzweiler, first elected in 2014, points to a tenure defined by complex, high-pressure cases that drew national attention and tested his office, and his leadership skills early.

After taking office in January 2015, Kunzwieler took over the prosecution of Shannon Kepler, a Tulsa police officer who killed 19-year old Jeremey Lake. The shooting of Eric Harris by Tulsa County Reserve Deputy Robert Bates came just four months later. Kunzweilers’ office then prosecuted the two teenage Bever brothers for killing five family members in Broken Arrow that summer.

A year later, Kunzweiler charged Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby with first-degree manslaughter. Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter after the on-duty killing of Terrence Crutcher. Kunzweiler’s critics at the time accused him of anti-police bias and Shelby was eventually acquitted. But Kunzweiler weathered that storm. 

“That level of intensity, right out of the gate, was a lot,” he said. “What I’m proud of is being able to stand in the middle of all that and guide the office through those moments.”

He believes a prosecutor’s job should remain insulated from politics or shifting public pressure.

“The job isn’t political,” Kunzweiler said. “Prosecutors are ministers of justice. We’re gatekeepers. If we misuse the law for personal or political gain, we undermine the system.”

That philosophy has sometimes put him at odds with critics — including McCarty — particularly in cases where outcomes have frustrated victims or advocates. Kunzweiler says those decisions often reflect realities the public doesn’t see.

“This job requires setting aside emotion and making decisions based on facts and law, even when emotions are high,” he said. “It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.”

His campaign has also leaned heavily on a warning: That without deep prosecutorial experience, a new leader risks misunderstanding the realities of the job — from weighing evidence and managing victims’ expectations to making decisions that may be unpopular but legally necessary.

McCarty is making the case that continuity is exactly what Tulsa County cannot afford.

She argues that the same tenure her opponent points to as a strength has produced an office that has lost public trust — particularly among victims of domestic violence — and has failed to adapt to changes in both the law and expectations around how prosecutors should approach justice.

McCarty has also worked with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform and policy advocacy.

Through that work, she has been involved in efforts to change how the legal system responds to domestic violence survivors and others impacted by the justice system, experience she points to as evidence of her familiarity with both the law and the broader systems that shape how it is enforced.

For McCarty, she believes the role of district attorney is less about courtroom experience and more about leadership. In her view, the office requires not just a prosecutor, but a manager willing to challenge existing practices and rebuild confidence in how cases are handled.

The contrast leaves voters with an important question: whether to rely on a known quantity shaped by years inside the system, or to take a chance on a candidate who argues that meaningful change cannot come from within it.

McCarty has clashed publicly with Kunzweiler over his application of the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, which allows incarcerated survivors of domestic violence to seek reduced sentences if abuse played a factor in their crimes. McCarty worked to get the law passed. Now she’s building her campaign for district attorney around the idea that the office has lost public trust and needs new leadership.

She has been openly critical of how Kunzweiler’s office has applied the Survivors’ Act, arguing prosecutors have too often resisted relief even when evidence of abuse is clear.

“The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was never enacted to give prosecutors a pass to fight against survivors,” McCarty said. “When the evidence of abuse is there it should be an easy ‘yes’ to resentence them.”

She has also been critical of Kunzweiler’s handling of the recent case of a Tulsa man, Wesley Cole, who was facing multiple sexual offense counts and ultimately accepted a plea deal that did not require him to register as a sex offender. 

Kunzweiler told The Frontier the Cole case had “competing factors.” There were four victims in the case, two of whom wanted to testify, two of whom did not, he said. 

“Two of the victims supported the resolution we recommended,” Kunzweiler told The Frontier. “Sometimes victims don’t want to testify, and if there’s an outcome they’re comfortable with, they’ll ask us to pursue that.”

“What they got wrong is multifold,” McCarty said. “This man with multiple counts of sexual offenses should have at the very least been put on the sex offender registry.”

Kunzweiler has made McCarty’s lack of prosecutorial experience a central argument in the race.

“It’s easy to imagine what you’d do in the job,” he said. “But this job is different. We’re dealing with murderers, rapists, child abusers every day. If you don’t have experience doing that, it’s just theoretical.

“You don’t hand a scalpel to a student and tell them to perform surgery. This job requires real, hands-on experience.”

McCarty rejects that framing, arguing the role of a district attorney is less about personally trying cases and more about leading a large organization.

“I am a business person and an organizational leader first,” she said. “We don’t need an elected DA that is going to sit on the front lines trying cases … We need an elected DA that is going to lead, that is going to prioritize training and equipping the best prosecutors in the region.”

She likened the role to managing a large enterprise.

“You don’t see (QuikTrip CEO) Chet Cadieux running a register at a QuikTrip,” McCarty said. “They are building, leading, and making sure their people have what they need.”

Kunzweiler emphasized independence from politics and a focus on law and evidence, even when decisions are unpopular.

“I’m not focused on what people think of me,” he said. “I’m focused on doing what’s right.”

At the same time, he said public expectations around the role have shifted, with some voters increasingly viewing district attorneys through a political lens.

“Absolutely, that’s happened,” Kunzweiler said. “Nothing’s more reprehensible to me as a prosecutor … that somehow we’re trying to influence outcomes in political matters,” he said.

Kunzweiler also warned against what he characterized as reform-driven approaches in other cities.

“The law enforcement community understands how important public safety is, and they do not want our community to turn into something like Minneapolis or San Francisco or Seattle or Portland, where you see utter chaos unfolding,” he said.

McCarty argues that accountability to the public is central to the job.

“This is an elected position,” she said. “He is a servant of the people. That cannot be separated from the job and it should not be separated from the job.”

Kunzweiler points to his endorsements from law enforcement and his record prosecuting violent offenders.

“In this race, I’m the only person who has taken violent offenders off the street and put them in prison,” he said.

McCarty, meanwhile, is asking voters to take a chance on a different approach, one she argues would better serve victims and rebuild public trust in the office.

“Anyone with common sense can see the risk isn’t in choosing me,” she said. “The risk is in keeping him.”