The Court of Appeals in Araya v. Keleta, expanded the meaning of the marital property in the context of Civil Protection Orders and related filings. In the case, wife-Keleta had filed a petition against husband-Araya alleging physical abuse and requesting a stay away order from the husband and from the marital home, which the trial court granted. On Appeal, Araya argued that as the home in question was not in fact a martial property, the judicial officer was precluded from ordering him to stay away from such dwelling. In short, the judicial officer had no authority to preclude him from
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Archives for Washington DC CPO lawyer
LEGAL STANDARD TO EXTEND A CIVIL PROTECTION ORDER: RECENT COURT OF APPEALS CASE
The Court of Appeals in RAMIREZ v. SALVATERRA, decided on July 23, 2020, assessed, analyzed and further provided legal guidelines for extending a Civil Protection Order (CPO) for more than a year. As a summary, the Intrafamily Offenses Act codified in D.C. Code §§ 16-1001–1006, created a civil mechanism for addressing violence within families, that is, an imaginative and progressive system that was designed to promote prevention and treatment over punishment. As such, the DC Courts have a wider range of dispositional powers than criminal courts to issue CPOs that enjoin future actions and provide for counseling and mental health
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DC CIVIL PROTECTION HEARINGS/TRIAL AND DISCOVERY
The Civil Protection filing and litigation although has an expansive reach in enforcing a range of orders, has a limited scope with regards to witness statement under the Jencks Act and generally discovery before the hearing. Moreover, the threshold burden of proof is rather low. Specifically, the Statute provides: If, after hearing, the judicial officer finds that there is good cause to believe the respondent has committed or threatened to commit a criminal offense against the petitioner or against petitioner’s animal or an animal in petitioner’s household, the judicial officer may issue a protection order that: Directs the respondent to
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Excited Utterance Exception: Admissibility of the 911 tapes: Recent DC Court of Appeals Decision: Washington DC Criminal Lawyer
Oftentimes in the Washington DC domestic violence assault cases, the complainant does not actually testify for one reason or another. In such cases, the government attempts to introduce the 911 reporting/call of the complainant in lieu of the substantive evidence of assault. If the 911 tape recoding does meet the three prong test for admission; then the recording can and will be admitted and relied upon by the trier of the facts albeit the jury or the judge. The DC Court of Appeals on August 17, 2017, in Pelzer v. U.S., highlighted and outlined the test of admissibility for the
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