Posts Tagged Scott County Criminal Lawyer

Domestic Assault Law Changes in August

New domestic assault laws make arrest easier, dismissal harder On August 1, 2014, a new law goes into affect which broadens the basis on which a person may be arrested and charged with domestic assault.  It now includes provisions for misdemeanor arrest, and expands the time frame to 72 hours.  If you are charged with domestic assault, or someone you know has just been arrested for domestic assault, here’s why you need to involve a criminal defense attorney immediately. The politics of domestic assault continue to ignore the rights of the accused and discourage investigation and common sense. It is often politically incorrect to doubt the words of an accuser, particularly a woman Sadly, however, we have created a system that does provide incentive to manufacture domestic assault allegations, and for the accuser to stick to their false story.  As discussed previously at Minnesota Legal Defense, The system also makes it extremely difficult for the accuser to “drop charges” so to speak.  There are a number of attributes which make domestic assault so difficult from the very beginning:   (1) The speed with which various mechanisms move when accusations are made (2) The immediate isolation of the accused. (3) The affects on pending or soon to be initiated family law proceedings. (4) The ability of the accuser to continue to manufacture evidence at trial. From the moment 911 is called, a very fast process begins, and you’re going to jail. Law enforcement and prosecuting authorities take domestic assault very seriously, as well they should. According to a 2012 Domestic Violence Report citing to the 2010 Minnesota Crime Victim Survey, as many as 201,814 adults may have experienced domestic violence in 2010. Besides the wrongfulness of this act, the other concern of law enforcement is that perpetrators of domestic violence may go on to harm their victims repeatedly. Abusive relationships have been known to escalate quickly. No officer wants to be the one that did not respond to a 911 call only to find a murder has occurred. For this reason, police respond swiftly to domestic assault calls. The person that calls 911 often has a distinct advantage in that they will tell the first version of events. At that point, invariably, officers end up subject to a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. When they arrive on scene, they will be looking for evidence which confirms the facts of the initial call. The caller will also often be the first person interviewed at the scene, further securing this bias. From there, they will interview the suspect, and selectively record and put in their reports those portions of the story that confirm the accuser’s version of events. It’s for this reason that it is important to not talk to the police. You may think that you’re helping yourself and that you can prove your innocence, but the officer is most often looking for you to say the magic words that confirm any part of the accuser’s story. Frankly, any confirmation that you… Read more {+}