This is a new, unique concept for a lot of people when they get arrested for a domestic violence case. Many of them think they've already been charged when they have not.
All of them've been arrested. They've been booked by the police, processed, and fingerprinted; typically, bail can range from $50,000.00 to $20,000.00, and especially with the Coronavirus going on, bail can be zero.
Domestic violence is one area where they're typically going to put some sort of bail because they want to feel like they're doing everything they can to protect the victim in a domestic violence situation in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors File Domestic Violence Charges
So, the question is, who files these cases? The answer, very simply, is prosecutors. So the police cannot file a criminal case. They can arrest somebody. They can send them to court. They can investigate the case.
They can talk to witnesses, and then they provide the information to the prosecutors in LA County, who make the final decision. There are a couple of different prosecuting agencies that typically deal with these domestic violence cases in deciding whether to file them.
That's why the query in the beginning, can you avoid getting your case filed is valid because sometimes we can prevent a criminal filing in a domestic violence case. It depends, of course, on a host of factors:
- whether you have a criminal record,
- what the injuries are,
- how strong the case is — to a degree.
Whether the victim wants you prosecuted does have some bearing, but it certainly does not weigh that heavily. In other words, if there's a clear domestic violence case — somebody's injured, they've got evidence, and the victim does not want you prosecuted because you're their significant other.
Maybe you're their meal ticket, so you get money and don't have to work — whatever the case may be, the prosecutors don't care about that. If they've got the case, they're going to file it.
Factors Why Domestic Violence Cases Are Not Filed
But there are cases where it's questionable. I just had a case not filed because both parties got arrested by the police. When the police got to the scene after 9-1-1 was called, they couldn't tell who the aggressor was.
They couldn't tell who a crime should have been charged against, so they decided not to file the case. Another reason that domestic violence cases aren't filed is I contact them pre-filing:
- I send them a letter;
- We tell them about the client;
- We tell them about the circumstances that the police didn't know leading up to them coming over there, and:
- Sometimes, we even give them the client's side of the story — the client's version.
I've even included letters from alleged victims discussing what they didn't tell the police when they got there because they were afraid. They didn't want to get arrested themselves.
So, it is possible to avoid filing a domestic violence case if there's a problem with it, and your criminal defense attorney can exploit that problem and use it to your advantage.
Best Criminal Defense for California Domestic Violence Charges
But make no mistake about it. Just because you don't want the case filed against you because it would ruin your career, or whatever the case may be, or because your loved one doesn't like the case filed against you, that will not be good enough to avoid a filing.
If you want to avoid a filing, we will have to have an angle. In my opinion, your best chance to prevent a criminal filing in a domestic violence case in Los Angeles is to hire a criminal defense attorney right away.
That attorney's job will be to try to prevent the filing and do what is necessary under the circumstances of your particular case.
That's the best way to handle a situation when you've been arrested for a domestic violence case, and you're hoping for a non-filing.
Could you pick up the phone? I've been doing this for nearly 30 years with great success all over Los Angeles County, zeroing in on these domestic violence cases to get the best result.
