Overcoming Penalties for Domestic Violence

(The content below was transcribed from an interview done with Acacia Law. We think you'll find it much easier
and more enjoyable to read this way.)

Interviewer: Okay. So what are some of the things you can do to help people overcome all the penalties and problems they're facing when they're accused of domestic violence?

Acacia Law: Usually, what I do is I try to do first, I always attack the case by going at the most serious charges first and then in a succession of time frames we analyze and prepare for each of the separate counts. And one of the counts that you have to deal with in domestic violence, besides the screening and the classes, is you may have to do substance abuse counseling, anger management counseling, some of these programs are very extensive, fairly tough, and very unpleasant to deal with. So the avenue of attack with them is to be aggressive. Go after the information first. Never accept the first plea offer from them. And normally I recommend you contact the authorities to know exactly what your rights are in a situation like that.

Interviewer: With domestic violence, how about releasing conditions? Are they pretty standard if you're arrested? Are they facing high bail or what happens?

Acacia Law: They normally stick around. I mean the vast majority of them stick around there's no doubt. A lot of times what's happening is that when there's domestic violence issues or if there's a criminal charge involved in people living or people previously had a romantic relationship or living in the same home, then the court will normally set release conditions whether or not to have contact with one another. There's where interference with judicial proceedings comes into effect.

Because what happens there is that the court has specifically ordered somebody to stay away from someone else. They may also order them not to have any sort of contact with them whatsoever including in writing. Or they may advice them not to stay within a 100 feet or 150 feet of a particular residential or business structure. So what happens is that when the person who is being charged violates any of those things, by say calling the other person on the phone, or going onto their property or trying to make contact with them through a third party against the court order, now you've got yourself into a situation where you're being charged with interfering with judicial proceedings or the acronym for it is IJP.

….These can be just as serious as domestic violence charges because those IJPs are specific orders from a court with jurisdiction over you. You are violating a court order at that point. Not the statute on the books, but a court-specific order directed at you. And judges will normally deal harshly with somebody who violates their specific direct order, directed toward that individual or individuals. And that is really probably the most common crime, besides violence against a person and the criminal damage we previously mentioned, that is associated with these domestic violence cases.

On account of the fact that the orders can oftentimes be impracticable for example, when you have a husband and a wife and they have young children and they really do need each other in order to take care of the kids. So my job is to do what is called a modification of release conditions or a motion to modify the court order that is in place prior to the time of the trial or disposition of the case.

One thing I forgot to mention about domestic violence, besides the classes and the other stigma associated with it, including physical restrictions on your movement and who you can contact, is something that is very near and dear to a lot of clients hearts and they don't even realize it is a, going to affected until it happens, is that you have to normally give up or forfeit to the state any handguns, rifles, dangerous weapons of whatever source. You give up your right to use those things as if you had been convicted as a felon. That means if you have a domestic violence conviction that's a Class 1 misdemeanor, if you're convicted you can't even use a gun to go out and legally hunt.

So I've had a lot of clients whose lives have been sort of turned upside down with these, because the combination is so deadly. You have burglary, which gives you a whole schematic full of charges. Then you have the domestic violence itself, which, again, has a whole litany of allegations that can be made by the state. And, then, finally, you have the court itself, which makes direct orders towards the defendant in order to have them comply in some certain way with what is in fact is going on in that particular circumstance, they feel they are making the alleged victim or possibly both parties more safe.