The Court of Appeals in Carome v. Carome, decided on October 21, 2021, expanded on previous rulings pertaining to legal standard for grant of Civil Protection Order.

After altercation among parties which involved allegation of pushing and destruction of property on both sides, the trial court declined to grant Ms. Carome a civil protection order essentially citing lack of compelling or sufficient evidence.   Significantly, the trial court had focused his ruling on events that had occurred during an incident giving rise to the filing of the CPO.

On appeal, Ms. Carome argued that the trial court had erred by failing to consider all events that predated and postdated the incident.  She further argued that these events provided context, a pattern of abuse and together were sufficient evidence of qualifying intrafamily offenses to grant a CPO.

The Court of Appeals recited the history and purpose of the Civil Protection Order statute in that the Act was both imaginative and progressive offering a wider range of dispositional powers than criminal courts.

The core legal standard is that: a trial court may issue a CPO that is effective for up to one year, if it finds that there is good cause to believe the respondent has committed or threatened to commit a criminal offense against the petitioner.

The Act seeks to prevent and remediate particular criminal offenses such as intrafamily, interpersonal, and intimate partner violence.  The CPO may also include protective and rehabilitative measures, both mandatory and prohibitory.  Moreover, a finding of good cause to issue a CPO must be supported by a preponderance of the evidence, and it is the petitioner’s burden to put forth this evidence.

The Court of Appeals previously in Ramirez v. Salvaterra, had both clarified and elaborated upon the legal standard:  “good cause” with respect to extending a CPO. There, in extending the CPO, the application of good cause necessitated taking into the consideration the entire mosaic of evidence related to the case, which encompassed the full history of the parties’ relationship and interactions.

The entire mosaic standard entails evidence of what occurred before the original CPO was issued, the nature of the criminal offense that served as the basis for the CPO, and what has occurred since the original CPO was issued and any subsequent extensions were granted, as the case may be.

The Court of Appeals here extended the procedural features that apply to extensions of CPOs to also the initial issuance of CPOs.  That is, even where a court considers an initial petition for a CPO, the probative nature of mosaic evidence is well established and must be considered.  A significant expansion on the applicable legal standard.

Specifically, the Court held that the trial court must consider the entire mosaic of evidence when determining the threshold question of whether the petitioner has proven the allegation that the respondent committed or threatened to commit an intrafamily offense. That includes evidence of events predating the events that precipitated a CPO petition, and even the events of the intervening months or years that may shed new light on the issue of provocation. The Court justified this large brush stroke as more consistent with the imaginative and progressive purposes of the Act.

In short, this new ruling will enable Judges to allow evidence of prior bad acts to bolster a petition for a Civil Protection Order and enables the court to expand the scope of permissible evidence.

Refer to our Washington DC Family Lawyer page for more information of this subject.