Defending Domestic Violence Charges in the Downtown Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building
I've been handling domestic violence cases in the downtown Los Angeles court, 210 West Temple, for the past 26 years.
Those cases are prosecuted very frequently because domestic violence occurs all across Los Angeles county, California and the United States.
Stiff new penalties have come into place since I started practicing criminal defense in 1994 when O.J. Simpson's domestic violence case.
He was ultimately charged with murder, really dominated the headlines and a lot of evidence was there to suggest that the police had really done nothing about domestic violence in not only that case but across LA county.
Police Policy on Making Domestic Violence Arrest
Since that time, the police now have a policy in LA where, if they come to a residence — for example, of a domestic violence call — and they can see that somebody is injured and the person that is the alleged defendant actually hit that person in some way or caused that person to be hurt, they are going to arrest the offender.
If there has been violence between two parties, what they will do is figure out who the aggressor is between the two sides.
Police will :
- arrest that person,
- book them,
- set a $50,000.00 bail, and
- give them a court date, usually within 72 hours unless they post a bail.
Now, with the Coronavirus in LA county, it could be as long as a week before someone can hit the courtroom. It's very important that you have an attorney if you're charged with domestic violence in the LA county courthouse because you lose a lot of rights.
You will be ordered to stay away from the alleged victim. If you live with that person, you won't be able to go back home. You'll have to find some other place to live while the case is pending.
That's one huge right that's under attack in a domestic violence case. Also, obviously, depending on what happened, you can get up to six months, even a year, in the county jail, and in some cases, if there's a bad injury, it can go as high as six years in prison.
Alleged Victim Changing Their Story
So, you start to get the feel in the LA county courts, they take domestic violence cases very seriously.
It's quite common that the alleged victim will change their story and try to help the other party once they realize how bad the circumstances are.
The person is in custody, they have to post a bail, they're looking at a lot of different consequences. The alleged victim starts to have second thoughts about the person being prosecuted for domestic violence.
Unfortunately, because this is so common, the prosecutors really don't care, and even if the person changes their story and claims that they lied before, most of the times the prosecutors don't believe it.
It's only those rare occasions where the original story is all messed up and now the new story is messed up as well.
Now the prosecutors start saying, wait a minute, we have somebody here who didn't tell the truth. Obviously, it's up to the domestic violence defense attorney — me — who's been doing this for over 26 years.
I will point out some of the inconsistencies and the problems with the statements and the story. It's not easy to convince these prosecutors to dismiss a case, give diversion or even a lesser charge than a domestic violence charge.
It's certainly possible, but you're going to have to have a great attorney by your side and no criminal record and hopefully, there's no bad injuries.
Call Hedding Law Firm If Charged with Domestic Violence
These are some of the biggest factors in these domestic violence cases in the downtown Los Angeles courthouse — the Clara Shortridge Foltz Courthouse. It used to be called the Criminal Courthouse or CCB. They've changed the name in recent years.
The bottom line is, it sits in the middle of downtown Los Angeles at 210 West Temple Street and it handles most of the domestic violence and criminal cases in Los Angeles county.
This is because of the large jurisdiction that it covers and because it is the main downtown courthouse with the most courthouses of the 38 courts in Los Angeles county.
So, if you or a loved one has a domestic violence case in the downtown Los Angeles court, you've come to the right place. Pick up the phone.
Say you want to set up a face to face meeting with Ron Hedding. I stand at the ready to help you.
