Domestic Violence Warrants
Domestic violence occurs when an individual commits an act of child abuse, sexual abuse, or intentionally/recklessly causing or threatening to cause physical harm to a family member or household member.
A family or household member includes a spouse, former spouse, parent, child, relative, residents of the same home, dating partners who have previously lived together, or individuals who have a child in common. If a family or household member has reported you for domestic violence, there is more than likely a warrant out for your arrest. In order to give yourself a chance to protect your freedom, contact a Franklin County domestic violence attorney.
Columbus Attorney for Domestic Violence Warrants
If you have been accused of committing domestic violence in the Columbus, Ohio area, contact the Joslyn Law Firm to discuss the facts of your particular situation. Brian Joslyn of the Joslyn Law Firm will make every effort to help you avoid the most serious punishments and repercussions to your charges.
Call the Joslyn Law Firm at (614) 444-1900 for a free consultation today about your allegations of domestic violence offense in Franklin County and the surrounding areas of Ohio, and get the security of knowing that you have an experienced defense attorney on your side.
Overview on Domestic Violence Warrants
- Warrant for Domestic Violence
- Turning Yourself in on a Domestic Violence Warrant
- Dropping Domestic Violence Charges in Franklin County
- Working with the Best Domestic Violence Defense Lawyer in Madison County
Warrant for Domestic Violence
A variety of incidents can lead to domestic violence charges. One of the most common domestic violence offenses is domestic assault/battery. This offense is defined by ORC §2919.25 as knowingly or recklessly causing or attempting to cause physical harm to a family member or household member, or causing a family or household member to believe that physical harm is imminent, by use of threat or force.
Once law enforcement has been made aware of an act of domestic violence, they will usually issue an arrest warrant for one of the parties involved in the domestic dispute. This warrant will give law enforcement the authority to execute an arrest on the individual who is accused of domestic violence.
A fairly common scenario is that the person whom the victim accuses of domestic violence leaves the scene before the police arrive to investigate. This will result in a warrant being put out for your arrest, but it has a lot of advantages. First, the police like it because the person is out of the area and no longer fighting with the victim (or with the police). The defendant likes it because he is not in jail and he can get his finances together to make sure that he can get a lawyer and post bond, make arrangements about work, and make his eventual arrest go smoothly and quickly. The Courts like it because it costs money to put and keep someone in jail, and any day that the person is not in jail is a day that the court is saving a little bit of money.
In most larger municipalities, when there is a warrant out for your arrest, no one is actively looking for you. Rather, the police take the approach of a spider, or more accurately, a network of spiders. Spiders don’t hunt the fly, they wait for the fly to come to them. The police are usually willing to wait until you drive by their speed trap too quickly or take a turn without a turn signal. When that happens, the police will pull you over, run your ID, and discover that there is a warrant out for your arrest. If that happens, then off you go to jail, just as if you had been arrested at the scene of the DV incident.
But in small towns where everybody knows everybody, the police often have a good idea where you will be. They know that you have a cabin up at Indian Lake or that your brother lives at 441 East Ohio Avenue. They know what your car looks like and where you work. These spiders do go out and hunt the fly. So if you are in a small town and you leave the scene of a DV incident, there isn’t much use of that unless you get out of town long enough to get your attorney picked up and to arrange the turn in.
Turning Yourself in on a Domestic Violence Warrant
It is inevitable that you are going to have to turn yourself in to the police, and that leaving the scene is but a brief respite from your destination, jail. But if you have used the time wisely, contacted an attorney who has a lot of experience in defending those accused of Domestic Violence, the process is will go a lot easier. Here is how it works.
You hire your attorney and that attorney will call the police and tell them that you and the attorney will meet the officer somewhere for the turn in. In Franklin County, the experienced attorney will first call the victim and ask him or her if they have any objection to your being released upon your own recognizance rather than upon bond. If the attorney gets the victim on board, the attorney will also encourage the victim to be present at the court house at the turn in so that he or she can tell the prosecutor and the judge that no stay away order is necessary and that there is no problem with a recog bond. Even if the stay away order is issued, that does not mean that a turn in was a bad idea.
Your attorney will know all the best spots and times. What makes a good spot and a good time? Assuming that all the ducks are lined up as described immediately above, in Franklin County, the best place for the turn in is on the Tenth Floor of the Municipal Court building at Courtroom 10C, also known as the Duty Room. This room always has a judge working it in order to take care of miscellaneous issues that arise like requests for search warrants, objections to a magistrate’s possession decision in an eviction, or, most importantly for our purposes, a turn in and an impromptu bond hearing.
So you and your attorney show up in 10C around 2:30 p.m., meet the police officer and the prosecutor, and the judge is expecting you there and then. The judge calls everyone in to the Duty Room and a hearing is held on bond. With luck, your victim will be there to tell the judge that he or she does not want a stay away order and/or has no problem with a recognizance bond. The prosecutor will be hard pressed to argue that you are a flight risk since you are here voluntarily. He or she will also be hard-pressed to argue that you are a danger to the victim when the victim either just told the judge that he or she does not fear you or is about to say that. Even if the victim and the prosecutor are dead set against your release, if your attorney has a bail bondsman standing ready or if you have your credit card out, bail can still be accomplished at that hearing.
If all goes well, and with a good DV attorney it often does, then the judge will grant a recog bond or a bond that you can afford or that your bail bondsman is comfortable with. You will be arrested and taken to the jail for processing, but you will be released in a few hours as soon as that is done. Then you have but to obey the judge’s orders and off you go.
Other municipal court systems have different times and ways of doing turn ins, but experienced attorneys in the area will know the ins and outs of those.
Dropping Domestic Violence Charges in Franklin County
Once domestic violence charges are filed, the state of Ohio has full authority over the case. This means that even if the alleged victim wants to drop the charges, it is no guarantee that the prosecution will do so.
Although some prosecution offices will drop the case at the alleged victim’s request, some prosecution offices have “no-drop policies” and will continue to pursue a criminal conviction for domestic violence once the charges have been filed.
Working with the Best Domestic Violence Defense Lawyer in Franklin County
If there is a warrant out for your arrest stemming from a domestic dispute in Columbus, Ohio, contact Brian Joslyn of the Joslyn Law Firm today. Brian Joslyn is a dedicated domestic violence lawyer who will work around the clock to clear your name.
Call the Joslyn Law Firm at (614) 444-1900 for a free consultation about your domestic violence warrant in Franklin County and the surrounding counties, including Pickaway County, Madison County, Delaware County, Licking County and Fairfield County in Ohio.
