WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE ACCUSED OF FAMILY VIOLENCE?

If you have been accused of using violence against a member of your family, you will very certainly end yourself in the criminal court system. In most cases, everything starts with you getting detained because of some allegation against you. Individuals are typically charged with Class A Misdemeanor Assaults in Texas Family Courts as a result of a minor altercation such as pushing, hitting, or throwing household items; however, the injuries, if any, are not substantial. This type of case can include pushing, hitting, or throwing household items. Other claims of assault entail more substantial repercussions, such as interfering with a person making an emergency phone call or committing a felony-level assault by, for example, choking someone. In either scenario, a criminal case will need to be dealt with, and it is not uncommon for a criminal case to have to be fought alongside other legal battles, such as a divorce or a dispute over child custody.

If a case is not handled properly, the implications can be serious in a family law matter like yours, therefore you will need to employ an attorney who has expertise in dealing family criminal cases. In order to do this, you will need to engage an attorney who has experience with family criminal cases.

An accusation of family violence almost always has at least two sides to it.

Using the benefits of family law litigation to develop a solid defense is frequently an effective strategy for fighting these types of disputes.

You are given the option to have a number of court hearings in family and civil cases, as well as to take depositions and gather specific documents, all of which can be utilized to bolster your case. In addition, you may gather certain documents.

If you are just dealing with a criminal matter, you will not have the opportunity to interrogate the victim or witness through the use of depositions or any other procedure. Instead, you are typically need to wait until the day of the trial to actually examine witnesses, which is not an ideal situation by any means. You may be able to utilize a flaw in the testimony of a witness or the claimed victim as leverage to negotiate a favorable resolution to your criminal case or even persuade the prosecutor to dismiss the charges altogether.

You may count on the skilled attorneys at our firm that specialize in family violence and protection orders to assist you with any type of family-related criminal allegation.

Can I look at My Spouse’s Emails?

When there is an allegation of domestic violence, abuse, drug use, or other criminal conduct, and the parties involved have children, the likelihood that a child protective services investigation of some kind will be initiated is high. This is especially true when there is a pending divorce or custody case. Once a criminal concern has been discovered or alleged by someone, the best course of action is to immediately presume that Child Protective Services (CPS) could be involved. When this occurs, you should not waste any time in retaining the services of an experienced family law and CPS attorney who is familiar with how to defend against the criminal charges and prevent CPS from taking advantage of your lack of legal understanding.

At our firm, we have experienced Fort Bend County CPS Lawyers who have also worked in the field of criminal defense. These attorneys have the ability to utilize their knowledge from all of these areas and can do a better job of protecting your parental rights in regard to your children as a result of this combination of experience.

Get in touch with our CPS Lawyers in Katy, Texas who serve Fort Bend, Montgomery, Harris, Waller, and the neighboring counties to find out how we may be of assistance to you.

Is it a Crime to Record My Spouse?

The answer to this issue is the same as the solution to any other big legal question: “It depends.” Our legal team has handled a number of situations in which it was abundantly evident that a spouse accessed their partner’s email account without the latter’s knowledge; nonetheless, criminal charges were never brought. The general rule is that if you access the email of another person (even your spouse) without their knowledge, you face the danger of being charged with interception of wireless communications on both a civil and criminal level. This is because you accessed the email without their permission. This is a punishable offense under the law as a felony, and there is a civil penalties of $10,000 per email.

The common argument used to downplay the potential crime is that 1) the computer is community property and the internet is paid for out of community funds therefore accessing the emails is part of community property rights (this is a really weak argument and someone could probably be prosecuted based on this claim if the other party really wanted to pursue it), 2) they claim “we shared an email account,” which is a better argument if you can prove that in fact you have shared an email account with the person in question, and 3) they claim that

It is best not to access your spouse’s email account without their permission.

There are other techniques that may be utilized to get the information, and doing so eliminates the possibility of incurring either civil or criminal sanctions.

Because attorneys see more financial potential in pursuing the $10,000 fines per violation (consider 10 emails illegally intercepted x $10,000 = $100,000), as well as the continuous dependency that people have on the use of wireless communications, we believe that even though prosecution of these potential violations hasn’t been extensive in the past, it is likely to increase in the near future. This is because attorneys see more financial potential in pursuing the fines.

A Protective Order: What is it?

Protective orders and restraining orders are two distinct legal tools, despite the common confusion between the two. When a court determines that there has been family violence in the past and that it is likely to occur again in the future, it may issue a protection order against the perpetrator of the violence. Protective orders can be in effect for up to two years and entail severe legal and criminal repercussions if they are broken during that time. When a protective order is granted against a person, that person is barred from owning a firearm for the period of the order, which might potentially be up to two years. This prohibition begins the moment the protective order is issued. A Restraining Order, on the other hand, will often result in the imposition of a fee and will be in effect for somewhere around a week and a half.

Our experienced Protective Order Lawyers can assist you in either pursuing or defending against the issuance of a protective order for all cases originating in Fort Bend, Montgomery, Harris, Waller, and Surrounding Counties from our offices in Katy, Texas. Our Protective Order Lawyers can assist you in either pursuing or defending against the issuance of a protective order.

How to Fight a Protective Order?

It is extremely challenging to mount a defense against a protection order. It is easiest to consider the prerequisites for a protective order as consisting of two components: 1) There was violence in the past, and 2) there is a good chance that there will be violence in the future. This indicates that in order for the court to issue a Protective Order, the court must first determine that BOTH of the aspects of the requirements for the Protective Order have been fulfilled, rather than simply one of them.

The most effective strategy for challenging the requirement that “violence has happened in the past” is to cast doubt on the veracity of the witness who filed the complaint.

This may be accomplished in a number of ways, the most effective of which is to locate inconsistencies in the witness who is making the complaint.

In order to accomplish this goal, it is common practice to use police reports, social media, text messages, and other collateral witnesses to unearth inconsistencies or evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the complaining witness. This serves the purpose of making the witness’s allegations appear less credible.

When making their decision on whether or not to issue a protective order, judges frequently give more weight to arguments that involve self-defense and other forms of self-defense.

However, even if the court determines that there was violence in the past, the second factor must still be satisfied in order for there to be a finding of domestic abuse.

The argument that future violence is unlikely to occur often centers on the amount of space that exists between the parties.

That is to say, one of the parties will have to leave the house or remain in a location that minimizes the possibility of the other parties interacting with one other.

In addition, it is essential to demonstrate that a considerable amount of time has passed since the previous incident of violent behavior.

If the allegations that the complaining witness is relying on are from two years ago and it did not result in serious injury, in the absence of something more, it can be quite effective to argue that future violence is unlikely to occur. If this is the case, it is important to note that the complaining witness is relying on information from two years ago.

In the end, a competent family violence attorney is required to effectively fight against protection orders by destroying the credibility of the complaining witness via the use of cross examination.

Our experienced family violence attorneys in Katy, Texas can assist you whether you are the target of a family violence allegation or a protective order application for domestic violence in Fort Bend, Montgomery, Harris, Waller, or any of the surrounding counties.