Domestic Violence Defense in Jefferson County, Colorado

Alexis explains: "a couple of things that will never be lifted in the domestic violence protection order during the duration is you're never going to be able to get your guns back during the protection order you have to relinquish your firearms when you're charged with a domestic violence case and you're never going to have the protection order lifted entirely it's going to remain in effect for the duration of the case"

Alexis explains: "a criminal protection order is not something you have to seek out so if you are um charged with a criminal offense usually a domestic violence charge um the protection order automatically enters against you by the criminal courts now that you don't have any say over you can sometimes get it modified but that one is going to enter no matter no matter what happens it's called an mpo or a mandatory protection order"

Alexis explains: "A criminal protection order only goes away after the entire case is closed. A civil protection order never goes away if it's granted as permanent, unless the people in that protection order, one of them asks to readdress the protection order."

Alexis explains: "a domestic violence conviction will result in the permanent restriction of your gun rights whether you have a misdemeanor charge or a felony level charge"

Alexis explains: "a lot of our clients especially my favorite clients to work with are people who are suffering from ptsd i can't tell you how many people i've worked with who either have ptsd from service related issues or ptsd from previous rapes or assaults and if you know anything about ptsd you get all worked up and you get in this cycle and you don't even know what's happening like you're just lashing out"

Alexis explains: "A lot of the times we see things happening from one drunk incident or someone having some kind of episode, that has nothing to do with them as a person, it's just a one time thing. And the spouse will call the police because they're scared or worried or whatever it is, but then the spouse didn't want their husband to be put in jail. The problem is, is because the courts are now involved. It's basically out of her hands that she cannot change the fact that it's charged. But if the husband contacts her, she can report that and say this is a violation, you can report it to law enforcement, you can report it to the DEA to the judge, and you can be charged if you're the husband in this scenario. But if she is continually texting him, there's nothing illegal about that. She can text, she can call she can follow, she can do whatever she wants to do, because she's not the protected, or the person who is restrained from talking to the other person. She's the protected party. She's not the defendant."

Alexis explains: "a lot of the times what we're seeing is people are getting arrested for DV charges when they shouldn't have been at all."

Alexis explains: "a lot of these domestic violence cases come up in the light of pending divorces um and so you know their tensions are high somebody one party or another might think that oh i'm going through a divorce and i might be able to get a leg up on my significant other or soon to be ex significant other by filing a domestic violence criminal case and that's that happens more often than you think"

Alexis explains: "a lot of victims of domestic violence are actually improperly charged, and they're charged as the perpetrator."

Alexis explains: "a question that our clients commonly ask when they're facing domestic violence charges is will the case get dismissed if the named victim recants or in other words takes back what they said the short answer to this question is no"

Alexis explains: "a violation of a protection order charged as another act of domestic violence it's a brand new case and now you're even deeper in"

Alexis explains: "if you have a domestic violence conviction it can seriously impact your ability to negotiate for child custody if you're dealing with a child custody battle"

Alexis explains: "An actual subpoena that can force you to go into court is a personally served subpoena. So in order for you to be forced to go to court, you have to be personally served with a document by someone that says this is the court date, this is where you're being served to go you have to sign it, they have to send you have to be personally served. Now, technically, you don't have to sign it, they can hand it to you and they can write that you are handed it."

Alexis explains: "an emergency protective order just in regular i say regular but in legal terms that actually is referring to protection orders generally in family law cases so you can get protection orders in criminal cases those are mpos or mandatory protection orders um you can get protection orders by filing them that's a civil protection order or a tpo or ppo and then the epos because we like to have acronyms for everything the emergency protection orders normally are seen in family law cases now we are not a family law firm we are not experts in family law we do have some good resources for that if you're interested in that information but just as a general rule an emergency protective order is normally seen usually in relation to custody issues where if one parent is trying to leave with the kids and the other parent doesn't want them to they can file an emergency protection order saying we need to have this address right now they can't leave the state with my kids"

Alexis explains: "and domestic violence charges or convictions cannot be sealed in colorado so there is a reasonable way that someone could be charged with let's say a class six felony it's not an act of domestic violence they're a felon they lose their voting rights they lose their gun rights but under the laws that we have in colorado they can ask to seal their case later down the road if they've lived crime free that's for a felony that doesn't involve a domestic violence charge if another person gets a misdemeanor conviction for criminal a criminal misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence they lose their gun rights and they can never get them back they can't seal a domestic violence charge"

Alexis explains: "and in that time you have this paperwork it's a court order you have to then personally serve the person that you are wanting a protection order from which kind of sounds counterintuitive because if you don't want contact with this person you don't want to have to personally serve them so a lot of ways people get this done is they either hire a private investigator or a pi to do it or you can even go to the sheriff's office and get a sheriff's deputy to personally serve it for you"

Zoe explains: "And then the last one is choice of evils, which just means that there was a situation or another harm that could have occurred, whether that's another crime or something else, and you acted in this incident as to avoid that other result, which could have been worse than the result that you had caused."

Alexis explains: "and there are a number of different things and steps you have to go through to prove that you no longer possess those weapons but that's just for a charge not even a conviction if you are charged with an act of domestic violence you cannot have weapons and weapons includes longer knives as well anything that could be thought of as a weapon has to be nowhere near you you cannot be in a house with them you cannot in any way be found to be in a possession of a weapon"

Alexis explains: "And you're not getting charged with a violation of a protection order, because you actually have a court order saying you're allowed to do this. And the other thing to remember is you're not allowed to take anything that isn't yours. In other words, you can't take shared items, you can't get to keep the peace order and go over the house and then 15 minutes, I don't know if it's possible, but 15 minutes, clear out the whole house, that's not allowed, you are only allowed to take what is actually yours."

Zoe explains: "Another unique circumstance you often find with domestic violence crimes is a mandatory protection order. So, statute requires that a mandatory protection order be issued anytime that there's a domestic violence crime. Often this mandatory protection order makes it so that you cannot contact, harass, molest, intimidate, or live in the home with the person who is said to be the alleged victim. Often you need a lawyer to help you in modifying this protection order that can allow you to go back home or have contact or things like that."

Alexis explains: "any time there is a domestic violence charge there will be a protection order that's entered against you and it's a mandatory issuance there's no way around it"

Alexis explains: "anytime that you're charged with a domestic violence charge you must be seen in front of a judge in order to argue bond as quickly as possible the general rule of thumb is between 24 to 72 hours now technically it should be before 24 if there's any way possible but with the weekends and different docket loads it could take longer generally speaking though within the first three days that you are arrested you will be appearing before either a judge or magistrate in order to be given a bond the reason i say given a bond is because that mandatory arrest law in colorado exists you are placed on a no bond hold until a bond can be set in your domestic violence case"

Zoe explains: "Anytime you're charged with a domestic violence crime or the court believes that there's probable cause for domestic violence crime, they're going to require you to complete a firearm affidavit. What that means is that you have to sign a form that says you either own no firearms or that you've relinquished this firearm or transferred it to another individual. That's just because whenever you're under investigation for a domestic violence crime or charged with one, you're not allowed to possess a firearm. If you don't comply with this affidavit or if the prosecution is able to find out that you were lying on this affidavit, you can face new charges such as a violation of protection order or other charges and consequences if you don't complete the firearm affidavit or if you're not complying with it."

Alexis explains: "As a former prosecutor, I've watched hundreds of body cam videos. Often, I saw the person being arrested continue to try to clear things up or explain themselves further. 10 times out of 10, they weren't helping their case. They were only providing more evidence to potentially be used against them."