Sentence Enhancer

“let's talk about possible penalties or collateral consequences of having a dv conviction now as we've talked about in other videos domestic violence is actually a sentence enhancer so when you're looking at criminal charges initially your underlying criminal charge so let's say you have an assault charged as a domestic violence offense that underlying assault is going to carry the penalties regarding how much jail time you could be facing but domestic violence sentence enhancers in and of themselves carry significant consequences that are in addition to what we would think as the normal underlying criminal charge for example you could be ordered to complete domestic violence treatment if you are convicted and in colorado domestic violence treatment is a mandatory component of a probation sentence you'll also have to deal with a mandatory protection order that's issued which we discuss in other videos more in depth”

“speaking of felony levels in colorado domestic violence charges also have a compounding effect which means if you are on your fourth conviction for domestic violence or if you're facing a fourth conviction the district attorney can actually file the sentence enhancer as a separate felony charge in other words your fourth conviction for a domestic violence charge in the state of colorado actually rises it to a felony level if you were just facing a misdemeanor you can still be looking at a felony if that is a fourth time that you're coming through the system on a domestic violence charge”

“domestic violence is actually a sentence enhancer so when you're looking at criminal charges initially your underlying criminal charge so let's say you have an assault charged as a domestic violence offense that underlying assault is going to carry the penalties regarding how much jail time you could be facing but domestic violence sentence enhancers in and of themselves carry significant consequences that are in addition to what we would think as the normal underlying criminal charge”

“so a lot of people think that dv cases are a specific charge it's kind of a misnomer though so dv or domestic violence um is actually like a modifier to a case um so the way that you can think of it is you don't have um like a red ball you just have a ball but it is the type of ball that it is so with a case any kind of case can be a domestic violence case if you add on domestic violence that's just adding on a modifier or it's called a sentence enhancer to the case itself”

“It's important to note that domestic violence is not just a crime in itself, but it's rather a sentence enhancer which can be tacked onto any other underlying crime. For example, let's say you were to steal something from your fiance. would be a domestic violence theft. So, the criminal charge is theft, but you're also charged with domestic violence due to the fact that the person you're in in intimate relationship with is your fiance.”

“It's important to note that domestic violence is not just a crime in itself, but it's rather a sentence enhancer which can be tacked onto any other underlying crime.”