If you are charged with domestic violence, you are in extra trouble just because the violence charged is domestic. For details, you should read Penal Code Sections 273.5 and 1203.097. You can find all the California Statutes at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html.
Although most domestic violence arrests result in misdemeanor charges, they can result in state prison terms if charged as a felony. Some domestic violence cases are charged under Penal Code Section 243(e)(1) when there are no visible injuries. Since the consequences of both charges are so similar, I will discuss Section 273.5 in this brief introduction.
The first thing you need to know is how they get almost everybody to plead guilty at arraignment, regardless of the truth behind the charges. They set the bail at $50,000.00. This is the highest bail there is for a misdemeanor charge. There are felonies worth much less than that in bail. Unless you have that much money in your emergency fund, you have to go to a bail bonding company. Most defendants don’t even have the required 10% of the bail to purchase the bail bond. So, when they appear in court for the first time, after they have been in jail for a few days, they are presented with the following plea bargain offer: “Plead guilty, and get out of jail today. However, you must agree to....” they don’t care! They will agree to anything just to get out today. This is the typical offer for a first offense. If it is a second offense, fighting the case is usually hopeless for a number of reasons. Therefore, if the case needs to be fought, the defendant must bail out and fight it from the outside. After paying $5,000.00 for a non-refundable bail bond, you still need to hire a good lawyer. Justice is not for poor people.
To illustrate the injustice of this procedure, I recall a case years ago where my client had some real issues that were worthy of presenting to a jury. When he was brought out in chains before the judge at arraignment, he rejected the usual “time served” offer. I entered a plea of “not guilty” and argued to the judge that he ought to be released pending trial on his own recognisance, meaning without bail, just on his promise to appear at future hearings. The judge denied my motion to have him released. My client had previously instructed me to switch over to “Plan B” upon the anticipated denial of my motion for his release. I immediately responded that my client wished to change his plea, and accept the plea bargain then and there. The judge was visibly displeased with the sequence of my moves because even the blind could see that the guilty plea had been coerced. But my duty is to vigorously advocate for my client even if it makes the system look unfair, and even if the judge doesn’t like it. The icing on the cake in that hearing was after the judge reluctantly accepted his guilty plea, and got to the part of his script where he had to ask my client if his guilty plea was entered “freely and voluntarily because that was what he wanted to do?” My client answered “yes” as the chains rattled around him. He was released that day convicted of a charge that he wanted to fight.
The consequences of a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction are quite serious. You are placed on 36 months summary probation. I describe probation as being held to a bunch of promises. If you break any of your promises, you go back to jail. The first time, maybe not. The second time, maybe 30 days. The third time, maybe for an additional 60 or 90 days, and finally, if you violate your terms of probation one time too many, the up to the maximum of one year minus credit for your previous jail commitments on that charge. There are variations on this theme. One judge proudly states that he has the best record for enforcing the terms of probation because he imposes the maximum sentence upon the very first violation.
The standard terms of probation include a requirement that you attend a 52 week batterers program. This is no small task. Some people forget that they must come back to court within 48 hours of their release to pick up referral papers for the program. That can cost them 30 days right off the bat. Other people get kicked out of the program for arriving to class late. It is not hard to arrive late somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area. Some people are kicked out for showing a bad attitude at the program. Whenever you have a problem with the program director, he is always right, and you are always wrong. It does not take much to run afoul of the program, and if you do, back to jail you go.
There is more. There is a restraining order. You have to stay away from your wife and kids until the judge allows you to go home. Any violation in this regard will result in double trouble. First you will be charged with violating your terms of probation. You will also be facing a new charge, violation of a court order in contempt of court. Do you want to know what your plea bargain offer will be on the new charge? Time served. However, you will have to do a month on the probation violation. Do you want to plead “not guilty?” You might as well. You are in jail either way. A few weeks later, after you have accumulated enough time in custody to qualify for release, you are ready to go to trial. By this time, you will have undergone what is referred to as “an attitude change.” You could go home today, or take your chances at trial. Just as before, you take your second deal “freely and voluntarily” as your chains rattle around you. Watch out. This is habit forming.
The third time that you pick up a new case, the plea bargain offer on the new case is no longer “time served.” Now the offer-you-can’t-refuse is perhaps three or four months in jail on the first case, one year for the oldest case (minus all time previously served on that charge, but with probation terminated), and, just to keep something hanging over your head, they don’t give you any time on your second case. So now you are doing months in jail, and greatful for the opportunity to do so because otherwise you could be in there for years.
That is not all. Other consequences of a domestic violence conviction are as follows:
If you are not a citizen of the United States, you are looking at deportation and denial of re-entry into the country.
If you own any fire arms, you must surrender them to law enforcement or sell them to a licensed gun dealer. You may not own or possess fire arms for ten years. If you possess fire arms within your probationary period, you are looking at both a new felony gun charge, and a probation violation.
Then there are various other consequences, including 40 hours of community service. There are also payments of money that you must make. These payments, $855.00 in all, are not called fines. One of these compulsory payments is a “donation” to a battered woman’s shelter. Even if you are a woman who beat up her husband, or a gay man who beat up his male partner, the money must go to a battered woman’s shelter. And the payment MUST BE A $200.00 DONATION or else you go to jail.
The world of domestic violence has other oddities. There are so-called experts in the so-called field of Battered Woman’s Syndrome who testify on behalf of prosecutors if the presumed victim recants her statement or even corrects the statements contained in the police report. These experts explain to the jury that the only reason the victim disagrees with the prosecutor is because the prosecutor, who says she is a battered woman, is right. There is no other explanation. The prosecutor cannot be wrong. Battered women protect their batterers. There are no exceptions. No matter what she says, that horrible man is guilty.
The California legislature, in a feminist ecstacy, enacted a statute legitimizing this field of “science” presumably because it could not be legitimized by the scientific community. There is no other field of science that required the legislature to legitimize it. This “syndrome” was “discovered” by one sole “researcher.” As yet, I have not had an opportunity to go head to head with an “expert” in this “field.” As you can tell, I am chomping at the bit to cross-examine such an “expert”. My Stanford Psychology major was the perfect training to take this on. But more importantly, I was born to debunk nonsense such as this.