Girlfriend and I Cited for Domestic Battery

My question involves criminal law for the state of: California

I need Help. Me and my live-in girlfriend who has a son by me had a confrontation. It all started when I returned from work. She does not work. We had been arguing for the past few days prior. So we decided to break up. Now i am in the living room and she along with my brief case are in the bedroom. But on this day she went into my brief case and found the birth certificate of my son. How I got it i took it out of her file box a few months earlier to make copies of it and i forgot to give it back to her. I come into the bedroom and she ask me how did i get the certificate. She takes the certificate. The copies i made she put them somewhere i could not find. So I grabbed the certificate off the bed. She brases up to me repeatedly trying to snatch it from me. I tell her let me go make copies and i try to leave. she wont let me leave the house. this goes on for about fifteen minutes. Our 2 year old son is crying saying stop. I look at my son and tell her to look what you are doing to our son will you please let me go and make copies of this. She looks at my son and then look at me with a Smirk. All of a sudden she goes into a frenzy. She gets my brief case toss all of its contents around the living room floor. She grabs my pager and cell phone off my belt and throw them across the room. At this point I am still trying to get out of the house but she grabs onto me. I push her back and she grabs a knife off the counter top. She raises it and I lunge towards her grabbing her arm. She is swinging her arm trying to stab me. I get a few cuts on mt bicep. At that point I punch her in the head. She drops the knife and run outside screaming.

I call 911. I have my son with me inside while she is outside screaming for help. The police arrive and take my statement. They take pictures of my arm which is scratched and cut. Then they arrest me. She goes to the hospital complaining of a hickey on her head and dizziness.

I went to jail and got out in the middle of the night. I called the police station and they said she was cited with domestic battery also. but she was not arrested.

My question is since she was the agressor and I was only defending myself how good are my chances of getting this dropped?

From what you say, you are both guilty.

I talked with an attorney. He said he can get this taken care of without me appearing at court. But I have to appear at the hearing for the Restraining order. What are the odds of getting the restraining order lifted?

Your attorney is very optimistic. If he is right, you are very lucky and your county is one of the few that does not aggressively pursue DV matters.

No one can guess as to the odds of getting something dropped in an unknown case, in an unknown court, with unknown circumstances before an unknown judge.

Expect that both of you will be getting a visit from CPS some time soon regarding the welfare of this child. Should the two of you stay together for some reason, it is very likely that CPS will be actively monitoring the relationship for any future blow up.

- Carl

The Attorney used to be a prosecutor in the county the charge is in and he was the prosecutor at the same court house. For what he wants to charge for his service all the charges should be dropped. I only had a consultation with him but most likely I will retain him. Having a lawyer who used to prosecute DV cases is a HUGH plus. At this point the money he is charging is irrelevant.......:D

One more thing...me and my girl friend no longer live together. Like i said she was cited also....:p

With more than 75% of DV victims recanting and getting back together with their abuser, it is logical to assume that all might be well within a troubled paradise once more.

I suppose he has a decent understanding of what gets dropped and why, and it could be because the sole proof of anything involves each of you pointing fingers at the other ... never a solid case.

But, beware of CPS ... especially if the two of you DO get back together.

- Carl

I am not recanting my story and I dont she will recant her.....but you are right on one issue.....We are both pointing fingers at each other.....So I assume thats why the lawyer said he can get it dropped.....We do not live together anymore....and it will stay that way....NoMoDrama:cool:

I find it odd that you guys seem somewhat biased. I have read post from men who have been the VICTIM of DV by their wife or Girlfriend and you guys act like its UNHEARD of for a man to be the victim......I am dumbfounded.

Women do committ MURDER and ABUSE......Most of the time its the women who start the problem. Some women will lie and say a man hit them when in fact they know they hit the man first. In my case my girlfriend would not let me leave the house. She was pulling me and pushing me. By the time I got to the front door I pushed her agaisnt the counter. I picked up my keys off the floor and she was coming at me with a knife.

Although they were no witness to this other than our 2 year old its my word against hers.

My point is the state ALWAYS lean toward the womens story. You guys do the same thing here. Any person is capable of committing violent acts be it male or female.

I read a reply from one of you guys saying this: "The Police is useless when you call them"....this was said in reference to a man being the victim and the women the perpetrator...But when a women calls the police...you guys commend her on that....

STOP WITH THE BIAS REMARKS.....this is a good website but you guys are not being fair to the men......

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Quoting NoMoDrama

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I find it odd that you guys seem somewhat biased. I have read post from men who have been the VICTIM of DV by their wife or Girlfriend and you guys act like its UNHEARD of for a man to be the victim......I am dumbfounded.

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No one here said anything of the sort. But, the overwhelming majority of reported DV incidents involve male on female.

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Women do committ MURDER and ABUSE......Most of the time its the women who start the problem.

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What?!? Where do you get THAT idea that it is women who "start the problem" most of the time? Care to provide some form of objective research on that?

Yes, women can push a man's buttons, and if that is what you mean, I might agree with you to some extent. But, it is the MAN (or, suspect, if you prefer) that makes the decision to cross from annoyed target of his significant other's ire to batterer.

Starting "the problem" is not the issue, who committed battery IS.

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Some women will lie and say a man hit them when in fact they know they hit the man first.

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Of course ... people lie to the police every day.

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In my case my girlfriend would not let me leave the house. She was pulling me and pushing me. By the time I got to the front door I pushed her agaisnt the counter. I picked up my keys off the floor and she was coming at me with a knife.

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Apparently the police felt that based upon what they had at the scene you were the primary aggressor thus you got arrested and she only got cited (likely for misdemeanor DV as they cannot cite out for a felony).

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Although they were no witness to this other than our 2 year old its my word against hers.

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Which often results in no prosecution unless there is some discernible and objective proof that can be compelling to a DA and to a jury.

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My point is the state ALWAYS lean toward the womens story. You guys do the same thing here. Any person is capable of committing violent acts be it male or female.

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Statistically that is because most the reported assaults are by men on women. It is also easier to write "he" and "she" then "the suspect" and "the victim" ... but, just as most terrorists tend to be of Arabic descent, most batterers tend to be male.

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I read a reply from one of you guys saying this: "The Police is useless when you call them"....this was said in reference to a man being the victim and the women the perpetrator...But when a women calls the police...you guys commend her on that....

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Because most women do NOT call the police, and when they do, more than 75% of them will recant or change their story within 48 hours. I have seen victims (all of them female) willing to go to jail to protect their abuser when their abuser would not be willing to do the same for them. It's a very devastating cycle of violence.

Yes, men can be the victims of DV. But, men are most often the suspects in reported DV incidents, thus the presumption is made by the posters here, and by most the criminal justice system, that the abuser is the male. Maybe when more men actually start reporting DV this will change. Until then, we can only go on the data so far.

- Carl

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Quoting cdwjava

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but, just as most terrorists tend to be of Arabic descent, most batterers tend to be male.

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Er... what? Most domestic terrorists look more like Tim McVeigh than they do Abu Nidal. Even if we're talking GWOT, which of Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, and Richard Reid were Arabs, again? Assumptions like that can cause you to walk right by the most dangerous people, although it can keep us safe from Syrian musicians....

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Quoting Mr. Knowitall

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Er... what? Most domestic terrorists look more like Tim McVeigh than they do Abu Nidal. Even if we're talking GWOT, which of Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, and Richard Reid were Arabs, again? Assumptions like that can cause you to walk right by the most dangerous people, although it can keep us safe from Syrian musicians....

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Uh huh ... but when you look at the aggregate totals of terrorists of all stripes, the non-Arabs pale in comparison. And I do not recall qualifying my very broad and generic comment regarding terrorists with the word "domestic".

In the case of Domestic Violence, according to the most recent NIBRS stats females are the victims of DV by more than 4 to 1. So, while this figure does not prove by inference that a male is guilty, it is an explanation as to why there is a presumption that the male is the guilty party. And, quite frankly, most the investigations we engage in tend to show that the male is the primary aggressor thus there is often a presumption of the male being the primary aggressor even if both parties might be equally to blame. However, pushing a man's buttons does not make the female to blame for being attacked, and very often this sort of excuse is the reason the male cites for committing the assault.

If there is a bias assuming males to be guilty of committing domestic violence more often than women it is as a result of experience. Fortunately, this board is not a court of law and we are each allowed to proceed based upon our biases and presumptions. And since none of us has all the facts, only one party's claims, we often have to fall back on generalities.

- Carl

And...domestic violence is a unique crime in several aspects.

One of the reasons that such an extreme degree of interventions is taken is because it's one of the few crimes that has an extraordinarily high level of upward progression. Committing DV once increases the odds that it'll happen again. A second occurrance more strongly predicts a third and so on. No one ever stole your car to death, no matter how much that car was worth, or shoplifted clothes to death, no matter how much they took - but domestic violence homicide can and certainly does escalate to the point where a victim is dead at the end of the day - number of prior incidents being one of the key predictive factors. Because of its escalating nature, all parties, from police, to advocates, to courts, have a big picture interest in preventing the pinnacle of domestic violence escalation - death. Most certainly women can be every bit as deadly as men - however, if we're specifically talking about deaths related to domestic violence, men murdering women far outnumber women murdering men; women who kill tend to do so methodically for money or advantage (poisoning and hiring contract killers being the statistically preferred method), while men tend to kill in the heat of the moment in rage (a firearm being the preferred method - used to kill not only the victim, but frequently for the perpetrator to kill themselves too). The PREVENTION of this dynamic is what the process, as flawed as easily manipulated as it may be, is intended to address. So every time you turn on the TV and see yet another (look around, there are several EVERY day in this country) man murder his wife/girlfriend/ex/baby's mama after a history of domestic violence, you can thank HIM for the system continuing to function as it does - because the behavior is still massively widespread. There's a very concrete reason why when a women is found dead that the husband/boyfriend/ex is the prime suspect right off the bat - because usually, they done it. When that dynamic changes and men start banding together to raise their children, to control their own beheviors, and to change the belief systems that lead to PREVENTING domestic violence at the same level that women banded together to get the system to REACT to domestic violence, things might change. Until then, the fact remains that the majority of death in domestic violence occurs at the hands of men, and thus ALL men facing ANY level of domestic violence charge pay the price under a system trying to avoid that end.

'When that dynamic changes and men start banding together to raise their children, to control their own beheviors, and to change the belief systems that lead to PREVENTING domestic violence at the same level that women banded together to get the system to REACT to domestic violence, things might change. '

What belief systems are you talking about?