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Fairfax Domestic Violence Penalties

It is not required that a person is related by blood or marriage to the alleged victim in order to be charged and convicted under the domestic violence statutes in Fairfax, Virginia. A family member can mean people who are blood and marriage relations as well as those with whom the person has cohabited in the last 12 months. These allegations carry heavy penalties for any person convicted of a domestic violence case in Fairfax.

Most domestic violence charges originate with a domestic assault allegation and domestic assault is a Class One misdemeanor under Virginia law. If convicted of domestic assault, a person will face jail time of up to 12 months and a fine of up to $2,500.

If a person is charged with some sort of domestic assault that results in a significant injury to the alleged victim, it is possible that the prosecutor could elect to charge the defendant with something above domestic assault. This would result in a felony conviction such as unlawful or even malicious wounding.

In the case of a felony charge, a person could be facing much more than just one year in jail, including actual prison time, if convicted. Contact a Fairfax domestic violence attorney as soon as possible so they may begin building your defense and save you from extensive domestic violence penalties.

Civil Protection Order

A protective order is a civil instrument that carries with it no criminal implications. It is simply a document that instructs one person to stay away from another person.

If a person is given a protective order and they proceed to violate the terms of that protective order, they can be charged with a new crime for violating the protective order. The protective order itself has no bearing on the outcome of a criminal case, however, because it is civil in nature.

Contact a Fairfax Domestic Violence Attorney

In order to sustain a conviction for domestic violence, the prosecutor must show two things; first, that an assault took place between the defendant and the alleged victim and second, that the alleged victim and the defendant are somehow linked under Virginia law as family members.

There could be pieces of evidence that are important to the case that need to be preserved the right way. So it is important to get out in front of cases like this as soon as possible.

For example, if one possible defense to the assault charge is self-defense, it’s very often that the accused might have visible injuries from the assault that they were defending themselves from. It is important, for these reasons, to get in touch with a lawyer immediately. The accused person will need to get instructions on how to correctly observe any visual evidence that might exist.

Even if there is no immediate need to preserve evidence, it is important to contact a Fairfax domestic violence lawyer immediately, because cases like this take a while to process and investigate. An attorney should be hired well before a week before your trial date, otherwise they will be very hard pressed to do a full and complete investigation and research into the case.

The sooner the defendant can sign a lawyer to start working on their case, the better it is for them. The more time the lawyer has with the facts, law, and information, then the better it will be in the long run.