If your domestic partner has accused you of domestic violence, you might have had a restraining order entered against you. One of the worst things that you can do is violate this order because the penalties can be severe. However, it is not always clear what you can and cannot do under a restraining order.
If you are facing a restraining order and need assistance ensuring you remain in compliance with it, you need the assistance of a skilled attorney. Contact Simmrin Law Group as soon as possible.
Ways that You Might Violate a Restraining Order
It can be confusing for many people to understand the types of behavior that are prohibited under a restraining order. As for the typical domestic violence restraining order, there are ten actions that will typically violate restraining orders:
1. Making Threats
One obvious way to violate a domestic violence restraining order is by threatening the other party. This is also one of the easiest risks you can take to get caught because if you threaten someone through email or text message, they can easily show a screenshot to the court.
2. By Failing to Move Out of a Shared Residence
What you might not know is that if you live with someone who gets a domestic violence restraining order against you, you will be required to move out of your common residence. Staying in your home with that person is a violation of the restraining order, even though you live there too.
3. Failure to Pay Child Support
A condition of the restraining order might be that you pay child support. The failure to do this will be a violation of the order, just as if you had violated it any other way.
4. Failure to Comply with the Court-Ordered Rules of Child Visitation
If you have children with the person who has gotten a restraining order against you, the Court will sometimes still allow you to see your children. However, there will be rules on how and when you can see them. Most of these rules will involve you not being able to go to the home of the person who has the restraining order or even see them in person.
5. Going to Your Shared Workplace
If you work at the same place as the person who got the restraining order against you, chances are, you will be forced to either quit that job. You may also try to make arrangements with your employer so you will not be there at the same time as that person. Unless you work at a huge company or location big enough or distanced enough so you never see each other, going to a shared workplace is most likely a violation of your restraining order.
6. Trying to Talk to Them in General
Sometimes we think, “maybe we could work this out if we could talk about it.” When there is a domestic violence restraining order against you, this is a big no-no. Contacting the person who has a restraining order against you is forbidden.
In fact, even if that person tries to contact you first, you might violate the terms of your restraining order by responding to them. The restraining order is only against you, so its terms do not apply to the other person. If you need to contact that person regarding child care, or something else important, it is best to allow an attorney to do so for you.
7. Failure to Return Certain Shared Property
In cases where a domestic violence restraining order is part of a divorce, the terms of the order might also specify that you must return certain marital property to your ex-spouse. While you are always required to do this, the fact that it would be included in a domestic violence restraining order makes the penalty for violating it that much worse.
8. Failure to Pay Your Bills
Even if you are forced to move out of a shared house or apartment, the terms of the order might still put you on the hook for paying bills such as rent or mortgage payments. Failure to do this will constitute a violation of the restraining order, for which the penalties might be severe.
9. Getting Too Close to the Other Person
The main point of a domestic violence restraining order is, quite simply, to force you to stay away from the person who takes it out against you. While the Court has some discretion in determining how close you can be to the other person, the standard is that you must remain, at all times, a minimum of 100 yards away from the person who has a restraining order against you.
Getting too close to the person with a restraining order against you, even by accident, is a violation of the restraining order.
10. Being In Possession of a Gun
If you are a gun owner, you may consider this condition a violation of your Second Amendment rights. However, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that the Second Amendment only protects the rights of law-abiding citizens. If you have a domestic violence restraining order against you, that technically is not you.
For a free legal consultation, call (310) 896-2723
Penalties for Violations
The penalties for a violation of a domestic violence restraining order are severe and mostly at the discretion of the Court that made the order. The first violation is typically a misdemeanor, meaning that you will pay a maximum fine of $1,000 and possibly be ordered to spend up to one year in a county jail.
However, if you violate the restraining order more than once, your violation might become a felony, in which case you might spend one to three years in a state prison. You will likely be fined up to $10,000.
Contact Simmrin Law Group
If you have violated a restraining order, want to appeal a restraining order, or just need advice on how to remain in compliance with a restraining order, you need the help of skilled and professional attorneys. Contact Simmrin Law Group as soon as possible for assistance.
Call or text (310) 896-2723 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form