PT11M48S
“So, the terms that lawyers use are in a criminal case, there's what's called an MPO. It's a mandatory protection order. And in a civil case, there's a TPO, which then turns into a CPO, which is a temporary protection order which is then transferred into a civil protection order or a permanent protection order. Now, these are handled by different judges, they're handled by different courts, and there's different processes for getting this done.”
“So, a civil protection order is very different from a criminal protection order. Because, one, you have to actually as a petitioner in the case, you have to file for a civil protection order. So, civil protection orders are put in place for individuals who are victims of domestic violence. For today's purposes, we're talking about domestic violence, but you can get a civil protection order for anyone. It has to be a showing that you feel that you are in imminent danger, that there has been some history of either physical or mental abuse or threats.”
“What happens is, any person who is seeking a civil protection order, must go file for a protection order themselves. It is not something that is automatically done. Conversely, in the criminal realm, when you are charged with a domestic violence offense, even if you're not convicted, as soon as you are charged and put into the system, there is then a mandatory protection order entered on your case.”
“Criminal protection orders are automatically put on you as soon as you have a criminal charge for domestic violence, and they remain in place unless you have some hearing in court. Or if there's some modification, they will remain in place for the duration of the time that your criminal case is pending and open. And the reason I separate those two is, pending means leading up to any potential conviction or plea. And then open is if you're then on probation afterwards, or if you have any type of jail sentence, or anything following a conviction, the protection order's still in place during that time.”
“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.”
“I went to court for the civil protection order hearing, and I showed the judge because the burden of proof is lower in a civil protection order hearing as to whether or not they grant that permanent order. I showed the judge all the ways this other person's story did not make sense. It didn't hold up. And I pointed out all the holes in their credibility and the flat out lies.”
“At that civil protection order hearing the judge said, that they were not going to grant the civil protection order to be made permanent because there was not sufficient evidence to substantiate that charge. Now, this is interesting for my client because the burden of proof in a civil protection order hearing is that the judge has to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the issues surrounding the need for the protection order, so usually it's a specific incident, and in this case it was a specific incident alleged, that this incident gave rise to the need for a permanent protection order to be granted.”
“So, legally, I know I'm throwing a bunch of legal jargon out at you, but legally what that means is a preponderance of evidence level is about here. And then for reasonable doubt which is what everyone knows as the criminal standard beyond a reasonable doubt is what you need to prove someone is guilty of a crime before a jury can convict them. Beyond a reasonable doubt is here. So, in essence, what happened is a civil judge said, you're not even to this threshold which then gives me the leverage when we go to court on the next date to tell the DA, it wasn't even found at this level.”
“Further, the person then goes and files for a civil protection order. And for the way that a civil protection order works is when they file a motion asking for a civil protection order the judge automatically grants a temporary protection order for a 14 day period. Now, after that 14 day period, the other party comes in and says whether or not they wanna fight the protection order. And then generally what happens is, assuming the other person doesn't also want a protection order to enter against them, which no one ever does, that then goes to a permanent protection order hearing.”
“If my client in this situation were to respond, even if they responded, no, I can't talk to you, in a text message, verbally, or over the phone. Under the law, that person could then report to the police department, that my client violated two protection orders.”
“And the cops will then go and charge them with, not one, but two criminal offenses. Because if you violate a mandatory protection order on the criminal side, violation of that protection is a Class 1 misdemeanor. If you violate a civil protection order, it is a Class 2 misdemeanor, and they are separate offenses.”
“That's why it's so important that you get representation in these cases with domestic violence because there are so many different ways they can spin completely out of control and do much more damage than they originally would have.”
“there are two different types of protection orders. A criminal one and a civil one. If you violate the civil one, it is a Class 2 criminal misdemeanor. If you violate the criminal one, it is a Class 1 criminal misdemeanor. Both of them can be issued for the same incident.”
“For example, and I have my client's permission to talk about this, I had a case very, very recently where my client was charged with domestic violence and had a multitude of domestic violence charges leveraged against them.”
“now, not only has one criminal case but three.”
“Or more often than not, the alleged victim is trying to get the other person to reach out to them, so they'll have more charges put against them.”
“Oftentimes, however, it's very, very detrimental to my clients to have both of these pending because it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, a lot of money to fight all of this.”
“This happens so often it's just sad. Because either both parties don't understand the process. They don't understand what's going on.”
“And it is incredibly important that you have an attorney representing you on either one of those.”