Police in Los Angeles almost always arrest someone when they get called to a fight at home. They do not need to see a mark on anyone. A neighbor who hears shouting can be enough. Most people leave the station holding a paper that orders them to stay away from their own house, and that paper is an emergency protective order. It can hold for up to seven days. In that week you may not be able to go home, and the court has not even heard your side yet.
This surprises almost everyone who calls us. In California the prosecutor decides whether to file charges. The person who called the police does not get that choice, and asking for the case to stop rarely stops it. What they told the officers that night can still be read to a jury later. Even if they refuse to take the stand, the case can go on without them.
No crime in California is actually called “domestic violence.” Prosecutors pick from a list of other charges instead. Which one they pick changes what you face. Two come up again and again:
Charges involving a husband or wife are handled on our spousal abuse page, and cases involving a child on our child abuse page.
The second charge is what lawyers call a wobbler. That means the district attorney can file it as a misdemeanor or as a felony, and the same night can go either way. The photos taken at the scene often decide it. So does any record you already have, and whether a child was in the room when it happened.
Jail is the part people ask about first, and it is rarely the part that hurts longest. A conviction normally comes with a 52-week class for batterers that you pay for and attend weekly for a full year. You lose the right to own a gun for ten years under California law, and for life under federal law. Family court will see the conviction, and it will shape who the children live with, which is a fight of its own once DCFS gets involved. If you are not a citizen, this kind of case can cost you your status in the country. Employers and state boards find it too, because the record is public.
Plenty of these cases get filed when they should not have been. The arguments that work in Los Angeles courts stay close to the facts:
Your first court date is the arraignment, and the judge will likely hand down a criminal protective order that day. If a restraining order is already in place against you, its terms stack on top. Its terms decide whether you can sleep at home, see your kids or pick up your own clothes. Those terms get set in a few minutes, and if nobody is there to argue your side, they get set without you. Two things matter before then. Say nothing about that night to police beyond your name. Do not call or text the other person, not even to say sorry, because the call log becomes evidence and the contact itself can break the order you were handed.
Okabe & Haushalter defends domestic violence cases across Los Angeles and the South Bay. Call 310-543-7708 for a free case review. Bring any paper you were given at the station.
