Children Involved in Domestic Violence Cases
This is probably one of the more difficult situations to handle as a criminal defense attorney when your client is charged with a domestic violence charge, and there are children involved. The prosecutors, judges, and police don't want to see children and domestic violence, and they tend to blame the issue on whoever the offending spouse is in a situation where there's a fight, there's violence, children are present and see what happens.
There better not be any children present or being abused during the domestic violence, and then the prosecutors see red as far as punishment and a conviction and what they're going to do to the criminal defendant in that circumstance. See related CALCRIM 822 Jury Instructions – Inflicting Physical Punishment on Child.
So, if you've got a situation where there's a child involved — it's a domestic violence situation — obviously, you need to get to an attorney immediately because there is an extra enhancement.
In addition to being charged with domestic violence, a lot of times, the person will also be charged with child endangerment, which is defined under California Penal Code 273(a), and this starts not only to cause a strong possibility there's going to be custody time, but it also may cause you to lose your valuable rights with your child.
If you get hit with a conviction of child endangerment and if there's any divorce situation going on, child custody is going to be a real problem for the offending spouse who commits a domestic violence charge that involves any kind of children whatsoever.
Sometimes, one spouse gets the children involved when they shouldn't. They start to make false allegations against another spouse because they're trying to gain an advantage in a divorce situation.
If this is where you find yourself, you will need a fighter. You're going to need an attorney who has been down this road before, who has defended people who are charged with committing crimes that involved children, the family setting, and domestic violence.
Special Prosecutor Assigned to Case With Children Involved
A special prosecutor will be assigned to the case. That prosecutor is going to be looking out number one for the child because when children are involved, prosecutors and judges feel they have a special obligation to make sure that those children are protected and anybody involved with doing any physical or mental harm to a child is punished in a very severe manner.
So, if you find yourself in this situation, take the right precautions. Make the right moves. Get yourself a divorce and child custody lawyer so you can protect your interests with your children.
You're going to want to get somebody who has handled cases with children involved, can do damage control, and not allow the system to take your parental right away.
Sometimes, when children are involved, and it's a domestic violence situation, what I see happening is the children are sent to the Monterey Children's Court in downtown Los Angeles. Everybody is given an attorney — the child and the two parents.
The bottom line is that the court and County Counsel for the government are going to be looking to make sure that if there's domestic violence in the home where children reside, they need to make sure the children are protected.
If they're not, they will not give the children back, even to the innocent parent, because they want to make sure the children are not in a home where violence could get to them. So, they will do everything they can to prevent that from happening.
