Defending a Domestic Violence Case in Virginia Beach

Facing domestic violence charges can be an overwhelming experience. All it takes is a moment of miscommunication or confusion to escalate a situation.  Besides changing the dynamics of a relationship, and impacting a person’s professional life, allegations of domestic violence can have serious legal consequences. An experienced domestic violence attorney will have previous experience defending a domestic violence case in Virginia Beach, and can use that experience to create a defense best suited to your individual case.

Steps to Take When Facing Domestic Violence Charges

When facing domestic violence charges an individual’s first step should be to contact a lawyer. An attorney can sort out what kind of charges and penalties a person is looking at. The lawyer can get together witnesses, anyone who saw the things that happened and can testify as to what they saw and get any evidence if there were photographs if there were clothes that were torn or anything that relates to the incident so that they can show that in court. A person would want to assemble all possible evidence.

Also, an individual should cut off contact with the person complaining because a lot of the time, they will think they can talk to the other person sort it out but, in reality, they cannot do it; it just makes it worse. Once charges are brought into the court, it is not the complaining witnesses’ decision, so the defendant needs to stay away from the accuser, and let the lawyer handle the rest.

Essential Evidence When Preparing a Defense

The evidence is vital when defending a domestic violence case in Virginia Beach. If there are third-party witnesses who are not connected to either party or they know both parties and then have the same level of connection to them and can testify, often, in these types of cases, they are he-said-she-said, and those parties tend to be aggressive towards one another. It often turns on who started it, who initiated the hospital contact, and if they can show that the complaining witness is the one who initiated the contact, and they were merely defending themselves from responding, that can swing the case.

Self-Defense

Self-defense is the most common. That is where the person who has taken out a charge is the one who instigated it, who started the whole thing, and the person was in fear of being injured or being harmed so they protected themselves. Self-defense is where a person believes that there are reasonable ways they are going to be harmed by another person and they used necessary force to protect themselves.

Defense of Others

Defense of others is where an individual believes that another individual is at risk of being injured and has a reasonable apprehension of injury or death and the phrase that the law uses is “step into the shoes” of that person who is threatened and they defend that person. They have the same rights to defend that person as that person has to defend themselves.

The best example for that is if two people get into a fight, a person is allowed to step in and defend the person, a person who is at risk of being beaten up. However, they do not necessarily have the right to pull out a gun and shoot the other person unless they can show that the person they are defending had a reasonable belief that their life would be in danger.

Benefits of a Lawyer

Local lawyers know the prosecutors. If there is a police officer involved, they often know the officers. They know how the judges tend to handle these types of cases. They know what judges listen for, what they take seriously, and what kind of thing sets them off in a case that will influence them one way or the other. When defending a domestic violence case in Virginia Beach, a skilled attorney will have the experience and knowledge necessary to fight for you.