[Music] domestic violence is one of the most heavily prosecuted and one of the most serious charges you could face in California now in order for you to be shown or proven guilty of a violation of a domestic violence charge there's three elements that have to be met first there has to be shown that you willfully inflicted some kind of physical injury on either your spouse your cohabitant or the mother father of the child or someone with which you had previously engaged in some kind of dating relationship that's the first one secondly there has to be some kind of injury that resulted in and what's called a traumatic condition on the victim and third you did not act in any kind of self defense for yourself or self defense of a third party so if you were convicted of a domestic violence charge this is what is called a wobbler offense meaning that it can either be a felony or a misdemeanor based on the specific facts of your case as well as your criminal history now if you were charged with and convicted of this charge as a misdemeanor you could go to jail for upwards of one year on the other side of things if you are convicted of this charged as a felony you could go to state prison for upwards of two three or four years and be required to serve at least 50% of that time in custody now in addition to this there's also a requirement that by law you have to take what's called a 52-week batters treatment program which is extremely time-consuming and extremely costly now in addition to this you also have very heavy fines these donations that have to be assessed and added to the penalties that you could face on top of that this kind of charge become even more difficult if it's an incident in which a victim and the defendant still have a dating relationship in other words the incident happened from a fight that they sense made up from now this becomes more difficult if they're in a day because most judges are required to issue what's called a criminal protective order a cruel protective or essentially can forbid you as the accused from being able to go anywhere near the alleged victim which could be your spouse or girlfriend or someone along those lines now this is important because if you were to violate that order you're going to go back in to jail for a new violation of Penal Code section two seventy three point six which is violating a restraining order there are several common defenses to a domestic violence charge now commonly you can fight these charges under the defense of self-defense if it can be shown through whatever incident that took place that you were not the initial aggressor that in fact you were attacked and that you were simply defending yourself then you cannot be found guilty of a domestic violence charge now a lot of times people in relationships where the relationship goes south and things and poorly the alleged victim can sometimes make up statements in order to find someone in trouble with the law and being charged with a very serious charge of domestic violence but as time goes on as statements are made and testimony by the victim are given in court the stories start to fall apart the lies start to fall apart and the truth eventually will come out and your case can ultimately be dismissed more information about this case and any other case please give me a call you