Domestic Violence and Harassment Charges Against Ex-Husband and His New Wife

[mandah2386]

My husband called his ex wife the other night, they got into a heated argument, she ended up threatening to come over to our house and beat him up(she's very aggressive, one of the reasons they are no longer married) He hangs up the phone on her. SUre enough 30 minutes later she shows up. They go outside and she is in his face yelling and screaming at him and putting her finger all in his face. He asks her to leave and she doesn't. They stand outside for about 20 minutes. He comes inside for a sec to grab a paper for her and I step outside. We kinda start getting into a argument and I ask her to leave. She doesn't. I push her and we start fighting. No punches are thrown, we just pushed eachother and grab eachother's hair. My husband walks back to where we are and tries to break us up. He wedges himself between me and her but we both still have eachother's hair. He ends up putting in a headlock. She head butts his nose. He tells her to let go of me or he will break her neck(which he would never really do, it was strictly a threat and she knew it). We both let go of eachother and she leaves. We called the cops and filed a report but did not press charges. She pressed charges against both of us. His is domestic violence in the 3rd degree and I got charged with harrassment. Neither of us have ever been in trouble before. My husband has a great job and we are worried what might happen. We called an attorney today and have an appt at 3. What do you expect will happen?

[viol8te]

Discuss your issue with an attorney. Your credibility on being the victim is downhill simply because you guys invited the incident. If she showed up and was outside screaming and yelling fr you guys to come out, you would have a much simpler case. Because a confrontation ensued, it akes it more difficult to prove you as the victims. What state is this?

[mandah2386]

How did we invite the incident when she was the one who threatened to whoop my husband's butt and showed up at OUR house? We live in alabama.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If somebody is on your porch yelling and saying she's going to "whoop your butt"... unless your dialing finger is broken, if it really needs to be said, you call 911. When you choose to start a physical fight with somebody, and that's what you're doing when you confront somebody and push them, you risk being charged with a criminal offense.

[Trailboss]

That's the problem: by going out, after she started banging on your door and haranguing you, you and hubby escalated the situation. Should have just dialed 911 and let the cops handle her...sad but true.

[mandah2386]

It's easy to look back on what you "should have" done and what was the "right" thing to do. But if everyone did all the right things, then lawyers and judges wouldn't have a job. Everyone on the earth has things they regret and things they wish they would've done differently. I'm not sitting here defending myself. Was I in the wrong? Yes. Was she in the wrong? yes. But you know what I did what I did and I can't take it back. I didn't ask what I should have done when I came into this forum. I asked what do you think we are facing? We've seen 2 different attorneys so far. Both think they can get us off, but both have very different ideas of what could happen if they don't.. One says he could face max of 30 days in jail. the other says 6 months. I'm hoping for probation for us both, considering it was our first time being in trouble with the police, we didn't come to her looking for a fight, no one got physically hurt, and plus she was asked to leave several times and didn't.

[viol8te]

You don't need to defend yourself. It's understandable, but still it was a poor decision. Chances are, if a punishment is rendered, depending on your backgrounds, probation is highly likely.

[mandah2386]

Thank you. We are hiring an attorney. We have been looking for one and seen several, now just trying to narrow it down to who we truly think can win and asking around to see if they've won similiar cases in the past. Hopefully by the end of next week we have hired one. Thanks again for your reply, it puts my mind at ease a little.

[mandah2386]

We have finally decided on an attorney, now just trying to find the money to pay him. In the meantime do you think it would be a good idea to get in anger mangement classes? Even though neither of us feel like we need them. Should we have done what we done? No, but you can only deal with someone yelling in your face and cussing you out for so long. Neither of us have ever had the cops called on us for anything, heck we've both never so much as even got sent to the principal's office when we were in school. We want to do whatever we have to in order to avoid being convicted because he has such a good job and will lose it. But I don't want to enroll in anger mangement and it make it look like we are admitting we have a prob and it backfire on us in court. What do you think?