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One kind of case that we've seen a great increase in in recent years
is domestic violence cases. I blame the ailing economy.
I think that when people have financial stressors at home they're more likely to
either assault each other—people who love each other are more likely to assault
each other
when they have domestic stresses—or to make a false report of
assault when things aren't going well in the family.
I often hear from people who have accused
their loved ones of assault that they only made the call to the police "to get him
help" or "to get him out of the house."
This is a mistake. When the police get a report of family violence,
somebody is going to go to jail, and once somebody has gone to jail
for a family violence call the courts are involved,
and lawyers are involved, and it becomes very expensive very quickly.
The police aren't there to help you maintain your marital or your
boyfriend/girlfriend
relationship; they're not there to help you keep your teenage son in line.
The police are there to arrest people.
If you don't have to call the police don't call the police
If your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your husband or your wife
hasn't hurt you, don't call the police. An "assault" is not
blood, it's not bruises, it's not broken bones. An assault in Texas is just pain.
If someone pinches you and causes you pain, that's an assault.
"Family" in Texas is not just people who are related by blood or by marriage; it
also includes boyfriends, girlfriends, house mates,
roommates, former boyfriends, former girlfriends.
So a "family violence assault" case could be somebody causing
a little bit of pain to somebody who used to be a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
As a lawyer I want to get these cases dismissed.
I don't want to have my client plead to something, because a family violence
conviction or family violence probation can never be sealed from public view and
can never be expunged.
I don't want to go to trial if we don't have to because I'd rather get a case
dismissed than go to trial.
And the people who try to convince to dismiss the case are the prosecutors
so what I need to do it is discover my client's story—
the story that's most helpful to my client—and then tell that story
to the prosecutor who can dismiss the case, and give the prosecutor
a good reason to dismiss the case so that my client
and the complainant—who probably love each other
and may have hit a rough patch—can go on with their lives
and not have the government interfering with their family business.