Defending Domestic Violence Charges

Question: How Can We Beat Domestic Violence Charges?

Answer:

In Texas, when I have somebody come into the office with a family violence charge, there are some questions that I’ll always ask. One is, who called the police? Was it a neighbor? Was it the alleged victim? Did you call the police? That all plays a role in evaluating the case. The other thing I want to know is, were there any visible injuries to the complainant? Another thing I want to know is, are there any pictures of the complainant? Maybe one of the most important things is, does the complainant want to prosecute you? If someone comes in and they’re the ones that called the police and there were no visible injuries, and the person wants to drop the charges, that’s probably the best fact situation you can have in fighting one of these cases. It doesn’t mean it’ll go away, but those are probably the best facts. What I usually do is talk to the client, figure out what’s going on, and I tell them I don’t want to go into any great detail at this point. I also don’t want to talk to the complainant at this point. What I want to do is collect from the state all their evidence, including videos, police reports, statements that were made. I want to look at that before I talk to witnesses, before I talk to the complainant, because I kind of want to see what’s going on, and how the story has changed. If the complainant wants to drop the charges, very often I’ll ask somebody else to be in the room when I interview the person in case that person changes their mind or changes their story. I want somebody to be able to back up what was said to me.