So You Got Arrested

Understanding Texas Family Violence Laws (Even with Strangers!)

• BRCK Criminal Defense Attorneys

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The Texas justice system is complicated, especially when it comes to Assault Family Violence (AFV). But did you know a fight with your roommate over food could be charged as a family violence case? 🥪👊

In this episode of So You Got Arrested, criminal defense attorneys from BRCK Criminal Defense break down the surprising ways Texas law defines "family" and "household," and the potentially life-altering consequences of an AFV charge—even for a simple misdemeanor.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • Why a fight between roommates can be classified as Assault Family Violence under the Texas Family Code.
  • The severe, lifelong consequences of an AFV conviction, including the loss of the right to own firearms or ammunition under federal law.
  • How a second charge of AFV can escalate to a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.
  • The role of prosecutors when a victim doesn't want to press charges—and why they often move forward with the case anyway.
  • An explanation of Continuous Family Violence Assault and how it became law.
  • The impact of Protective Orders and bond conditions on the accused and their household.
  • Why specialized AFV courts in jurisdictions like Bexar County are so backed up and the debate over the law's intent.

If you're facing charges or just want to understand the complexities of the Texas justice system, we’ve got your back.

👉 Listen, subscribe, and share!

Disclaimer: This podcast provides general legal information and is not legal advice. For advice on your specific situation, contact a qualified attorney.

BRCK Criminal Defense: For legal assistance, visit us at BRCKDefense.com.

#TexasLaw #FamilyViolence #CriminalDefense #Assault #TexasJustice #SoYouGotArrested #LegalAdvice #Roommates #Felony #Misdemeanor

SPEAKER_00:

The podcast that tells you what really happens after an arrest, posted by British criminal defense attorney. We talk to the people who've lived it, worked in it, and been shaped by it. Whether you're facing charges or just want to understand your rights, your options, and the smart moves that could change everything, we've got your back.

SPEAKER_02:

So, Scott, my son is uh over at college and uh he moved out of the dorms this year. And so we got him an apartment that he shares with some roommates, and it's kind of a weird situation uh because it's an apartment that has like five bedrooms and he has these roommates and they they share this apartment. They each have their own bedroom. Uh some of the roommates are his friends, but uh a couple of them he never met prior to this year. Got it. So I was thinking about this the other day. Um he just moved into this apartment about a month ago. They share, you know, kind of the living room and the kitchen. They share the refrigerator, they have their, he has his food in there. And I was thinking about, you know, if one of his roommates was to go into the refrigerator and eat some of his food, and maybe my son gets mad and they get into a fight uh and it turns into a physical altercation, what kind of case could that be?

SPEAKER_03:

So it should just, well, first of all, if it's mutual combat, there should be no charges. A lot of times police officers will come out to a scene where two people get into it, you can't really determine the aggressor. And I've always argued that just because somebody won the fight doesn't make it a criminal case, right? But but it really does in the eyes of law enforcement. So if somebody ends up beating the heck out of the if your son wins the fight, right. The other guy has a he's liable to be arrested for a just a regular misdemeanor assault. Okay. However, what we've been seeing is because they're roommates legally and meets the definition of assault, family violence, dating household. Right. Okay, which is still the same thing, still a misdemeanor, uh, but but it has other consequences. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I was gonna say, and and part of the reason it it's you know, a family violence case is because of the way that the Texas Family Code defines family violence. Family violence is an act by a member of a family or a household against another member of the family or or a household. And households defined as just person, uh persons living together in the same dwelling. Right. So this would this would qualify as family violence.

SPEAKER_03:

It qualifies as family violence for sure. Whether whether it should really be done as family violence, different prosecutors have would they weigh in differently on that. Uh when I was a prosecutor, I wouldn't have taken it as family violence. I don't want to get too much in the weeds on the on this issue, but so generally, when you have a just say it's a really legit family violence case where uh a um guy assaults his living girlfriend, okay? Um they don't have to put in the charging for the misdemeanor information that family member or a dating relationship, they could just say assaulted this this woman by striking her with his hand. And then the court can make the family violence finding or member of household or dating relationship, that family violence finding after the conviction.

SPEAKER_02:

But but the the charging it as a family violence case, when people get charged with the family violence case from the outset, there's additional consequences than you might find in a regular assault case, right?

SPEAKER_03:

All kinds of different things happen. So what for example So, first off, if if you're convicted, not deferred adjudication, but if you're convicted and there's a family violence or household, so so every every time I say from here on in family violence, that includes a household member, like you said. The scenario with my son. Exactly right. Okay. So if you're convicted and there's a family violence finding, under federal law, you can never own guns or ammunition the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so that's a lifetime.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's forever. Okay. The other thing is, even if you get deferred adjudication, so it's not a conviction, so it doesn't invoke the federal statute, and now you get into another fight with another roommate, now it can become what we call an assault second, where you have one adjudication or conviction. It doesn't have to be a conviction for this, an adjudication. You got probation. You got deferred adjudication, probation. Right. Okay, not a conviction. Right. Okay. But now you get an and it's and it and so you can prove that that prior was against a family member or a dating person or or a household member. Now you have another assault against the same type of thing. Uh, now it becomes a felony punishable by two to ten years. In prison. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm not saying you wouldn't get probation on that felony, right? But it's probation that if you mess up, you're looking at two to ten.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a much more serious offense. Completely different. I mean, yeah, nobody wants to have a felony conviction. Well, not only that, but when you get charged with these uh family violence or household violence cases, there might be additional uh conditions just on your bond while you're awaiting your trial, while you're going to court, there's additional conditions that they can put on you.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. The new statute we talked about two uh episodes ago where you have to be held for an extra four hours if there's a if if it's a family violence household assault, uh you're you may be you're very much likely to have a GPS monitor on your ankle if you have that type of charge. Uh and so I would encourage law enforcement to not charge the because that's not the intent of the family violence statute, is two roommates get into a fight. Right. That was never the intent. Okay. I don't know if I don't know if I mentioned this on a prior episode, but when I was prosecuting Medina County, we had the sheriff's department trying to file family violence assault cases on two guys on an assault at the jail. Okay. Okay, so two guys were in jail, so they're sharing a dwelling and they filed it as a family violence assault because they're the same household, the jail. I'm like, we're not doing it that way. No, it'll just it's just a regular assault. There's nothing wrong with just calling it a regular assault, right?

SPEAKER_02:

And and I know that, you know, when you were a prosecutor at the Bear County DA's office, you handled a lot of family violence cases. And I can always imagine that those are difficult cases to prosecute. But because oftentimes, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, the complaining witness, you know, the the person who's on the receiving end, uh, may not want the case to proceed. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And so when I first started doing this in the in like 1996, okay, we had just started pursuing going forward on cases with the without the victim's permission.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So so that's a scenario where maybe in the scenario you gave the live in girlfriend says, Hey, I don't want this prosecuted. I don't, I want it dropped, I don't want you to carry it forward. Um, and we didn't care. We went forward anyway. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so this is the there's confusion on this issue because a lot of people will say, Oh, well, because it's a family violence case, you can't dismiss it. We can dismiss it if the case sucks. Okay. But if the case is good, if we got a 911 call saying he's beating me up and there's pictures of bruises, we're taking what the victim wants to do out of the equation about how we pursue it. And there's a big reason for that. Because back in the old days, you used to have these guys beat up their wives every time they got drunk, and and they would keep coming down and swearing out a thing saying I want to pursue charges, and the charges would be dismissed. And the officers got sick of coming out to that house every month. Right. And and back in the 90s, we knew as I knew as a misdemeanor prosecutor in Bear County that the rate of family violence assaults always went up when the Cowboys lost. Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't know that. No, when the Cowboys lost, we had a bunch of family violence assaults. Now it's so commonplace that it that nobody cares anymore. But but but yeah, but so so we can't you can't sit there and be because you don't know what's going on in the household. So is he intimidating her to get her and saying, I'm gonna beat you even worse if you don't try to get these charges dropped? So we have to take that whole thing out of the equation and say, you violated the law. The police came out to your house and made an arrest. Uh, whether the victim wants to pursue the charges or not, we'll we'll listen to it, but it's not really relevant to what we're gonna do with the case.

SPEAKER_02:

And that does cause confusion because uh from time to time we we get the complaining witness or the victim on the case saying, Hey, I I told the prosecutors I want this case dropped. Why haven't they dismissed it yet?

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So that if as a defense attorney, our clients get mad, like, well, what why haven't you got this case dismissed yet? Um, my my girlfriend doesn't want to pursue. Like, because they have good evidence. I mean, sometimes those 911 calls are very compelling. And nowadays, most jurisdictions, when the officer comes out, there's body cam. And so everything she said to the officer about what he did is captured on body cam. And so now she may come in and say, I lied to the police officer, but but we don't believe it's a lie. We believe that what she said when it happened is more accurate. That's why there's an exception to it in in the evidence code of why you can uh call it an excited utterance.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. So you you have a situation where the officer arrives, he's running his body cam, and you have uh, you know, uh the girlfriend, you know, crying with a bloody lip, and you know, and the guy outside without a shirt pacing back and forth or whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And sometimes the body cam's catching the guy saying, You better shut the hell up, you know, right? And and that's a damn good case for the prosecution. I don't even need her to come. Right. I have the pictures, the officer knows can identify the parties. We have video of the body cam. We have a 911 call. I just need to put that officer, I can prove the whole case through the officer. So we we I'm not so as prosecutors, we are required to listen to the victim when they call, but we're not required to do what they want. It's not their case, it's not their case, it's the state's case, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so you know what what I found interesting is the law on family violence has been evolving so much. I've been practicing 20 years, and uh, you know, I remember back before we had laws like continuous family violence. And so could you explain what with that?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so so so back going back to the 90s when I first started doing this, you could assault your girlfriend or your wife time and time again, and every time it would just be a new misdemeanor. So you've already known what that you're only getting a misdemeanor for it, it's not stopping. Okay. Uh, and so I I think it was in 1999 when they first passed the law saying, okay, and this is similar to what other states had done before Texas got around to it, is is so if you assault a family member or somebody you're dating or member of a household and you plead to it, now if you do it again, it becomes a felony, the assault second we mentioned earlier in the show. Right. Okay. Uh and so uh when that happens, uh now you're looking at at a felony rather than a misdemeanor. And so that happened. So actually, originally when they passed the law, they made it assault third. Okay. So back in the late 90s, they made it like the DWI statute. You had to have two family violence adjudications, and the third one became a felony. That only lasted two years. The next legislative session, they said, Well, this is silly, giving them two assaults before. And then so the very next legislative session, they said, No, once you have one prior, the second one becomes a third-degree felony, two to ten. Then in the 2000s, they created the continuous family violence statute you mentioned. Because what we were having a problem is is you still, in order to make an assault second, there had to be a plea.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. The case had to be that first assault had to be finalized with either a conviction or a plea.

SPEAKER_03:

Correct. And so what you were having is is people assaulting their their girlfriend or wife, uh, and then because they hadn't got the charges dismissed, assaulting them again, and we could we still couldn't do it as a felony yet. So they created the new snooze, the statutes called continuous family violence, meaning if you have uh two assaults within a 12-month period, again, and it doesn't have to be against the same person, right? Okay, you could assault your mother on on in June and assault your girlfriend in July, and both of these cases are still pending, but instead of having two misdemeanors now, they're gonna combine these two incidences and create it as a continuous family violence assault. Uh, once again, third-degree felony punishable by two to 10, but they have to prove both separate incidences beyond a reasonable doubt. Okay, okay. Generally, as a prosecutor, usually on those continuous cases, we had one really good offense and one that was kind of shaky. Right. Okay, but you have to prove up both of them, both of them during the trial for the conviction.

SPEAKER_02:

Correct. Yeah, yeah. And and so, you know, in those circumstances when you were prosecuting these cases, I'm not asking for a percentage, but just generally speaking, how often were you dealing with cases where the victim didn't want to pursue charges?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, it felt it felt like around half the time. Okay. Okay, and and and I had I had victims who would come in. So here this is important for everybody to know. If you're feeling like that that if things we hear this all the time, it got blown out of proportion, right? How many times have you heard that? So I I do want to listen to what the the victim is telling me. Uh and I've had victims come in and and they lie to me right off the bat. What do you mean? How do you know they're lying? Because they'll say, I'll say, well, you know, you're saying that that the police shouldn't have done this, but you called the police, and they're like, oh no, it was a neighbor who called the police. Now I haven't listened to 911 call yet. And I'm like, are you sure? Because I'm gonna go listen to it. No, no, I never called the police. I go listen to the 911 call, they called the police. You can hear their voice, right? Crying on the phone. Right. Yeah. And so now I don't now they're not credible to me anymore.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. And so now I I they have much less effect, like what they want to see happen has much less influence on me. Right. Okay. So don't lie to people when you're trying to get be honest about it, and you have a better chance. I've had victims sit down with me. I actually had a victim once say, I I am not afraid of my boyfriend. I can take my boyfriend. I was a female wrestler. I'll I'll uh if you want to wrestle me right now, I and she convinced me to dismiss the case. She didn't put me in an arm bar or anything, but she did convince me that because what we worry about, we don't we don't want somebody to get killed by their the the person they're in love with. Right. Okay. And we never know which are the cases that are like really dangerous and which are the cases that it it's got blown out of proportion. We have no magic way of knowing. We don't know what the dynamic is in that household. All we can do is look at the facts of this particular case and see how bad it is. You know, when we hear when when we hear threats of like, I'm gonna kill myself or if I can't have you, nobody will, makes us nervous. Uh absolutely. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, and so when you hear that kind of stuff going on, you'd be like, I'm not dismissing this case. Yeah. If I if I lose it in trial because she wants to get up and say it never happened, but I in all honesty, I never lost a case where the victim testified for the defense and said it never happened. Wow. I've lost plenty where they got up and said, I want him to go to jail forever. But but when they got up and said it didn't happen, the jurors never bought that stuff. Yeah, they know what's going on.

SPEAKER_02:

So we have plenty more to talk about when we come back after the break. That went fast.

SPEAKER_01:

The attorneys of Brit Criminal Defense have helped over 5,000 clients move on with their lives. When an arrest or accusation turns your life upside down, we have the knowledge, experience, and integrity to get your life back on track. Traditional legal ethics, modern legal tactics, the best defense possible to get you through the criminal justice system. Search Brit Criminal Defense to see our reviews and find out why so many of our clients have trusted us to fight for them. Brit Criminal Defense, helping our clients move on with their lives.

SPEAKER_02:

And so a lot of times on these family violence cases, uh you have additional proceedings that happen, like for example, the family violence protective order. Yeah. And could you explain what that is?

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. So so now I want to be very clear there's an emergency protective order that happens when you're booked that is different from going to court and getting a two-year protective order. That's a civil uh suit that's filed. The DA's office will file those two-year protective orders for you, but you got to handle those in civil court. But when you're booked for a family violence offense, frequently the officer will request an emergency protective order, which can last from 30 to now 120 days. 120 days. Uh, and so there's and and we and there's no real easy way to ever take that off. So you're gonna have to live with the fact that you and your significant other aren't gonna be able to have contact and that emergency protective order expires.

SPEAKER_02:

And so the protective order is something that would keep uh the person accused of the offense from uh possibly being able to go back to that household.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And so, so the interesting thing is so we have people with who are arrested for family violence assault and haven't made bond yet. And they're calling and saying, you better get down there and get those charges dropped. Now that's a new charge because they violated the emergency protective order. It's a new class A misdemeanor. It's punishable by the same way that the uh family violence assault is, and guess what? Absolutely, we can there's no way not to prove that. Right, because now they have a recorded conversation. I have a recorded conversation of you talking to her. What don't comp I talked before about not needing the victim to pursue on some of these cases. You really don't need the victim to prove that one up. I'm just gonna bring the jail call person in, show that they violate and bring in the emergency protective order that he signed when he was magistrated, right? And it's proved.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I imagine those protective orders can be difficult to deal with because you know, you take a scenario where maybe you have a husband and wife with a child, and the uh wife or you know, the victim of the case relies on this other person in the household for help with child care, picking up the kids after school, whatever the case may be, uh, those dynamics come into play and they can be very complicated to deal with.

SPEAKER_03:

We've had that at BRIC where where you know the our our the victim was not able to take care of coordinate, pick up the kids every day, and needed to talk to her her husband about how they were going to do this. Uh, and and we weren't able to fix the emergency. Once the emergency protective order was done, then we were able to change. There was a condition of bond also, saying no contact at all. Separate issue. I I think we probably need to touch on that in a little bit. Um, so but so we were able to get that changed to no harmful injurious contact. But the emergency protective order back then, I think the this particular case I'm talking about was only a 60-day one. Okay, they just had to live with it for 60 days. Right. So there's nothing we could do. Right. It's it's more complicated. There is actually something we can do, but it's almost never successful, and it takes and it's very difficult. You have to go back to the magistrate's court and file something, and the magistrate's not wanting to change it.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely, absolutely, because you know, if something does happen, uh then you know, the it's the magistrate who's rescinded that order.

SPEAKER_03:

Correct. Yeah. Right. And nobody wants to have their head put themselves out there.

SPEAKER_02:

And and even, you know, uh, we talk about these consequences that come about. You mentioned this, you know, you could have a bond condition that's in addition to that family violence protective order uh that says, hey, you're not allowed to have contact with the victim, which is always for your spouse.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you pretty much always have the bond condition of either no contact at all with the person alleged to be the victim in the crime or no harmful or injurious contact. It's pretty much always a condition. Is that true in the 81st?

SPEAKER_02:

Also, it is true. And but the the complicating things about family violence cases is, you know, so it's one thing, Scott, like if uh you and I are at a bar and you're rooting for the Eagles and I'm rooting for the Cowboys, and we end up in a fight, you know, just because you don't root for a good team. And uh but it's a you know, we don't live in the same place. Right. But if it's household violence, family violence, we share a household. And now there's this bond condition saying, hey, you can't go back home.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And the problem there, uh obviously the family's violence laws are set to protect people who are being victimized in an abusive relationship. Well, guess what? Sometimes the person who owns the house is the abuser, right? And so now we have a victim with a child who has to move out of his house because, like, obviously, if it's community property, they stay and he has to get out. Okay, but that's not always the case. So now that we have a gal who's has no family here, right? And and so we have a good battered women's shelter, but a lot of women don't want to go to that. Of course not. But we have we it we do have a very good one here. Uh, and so we have things in the community to take care of people who have to get out because of these kind of situations, and we do have a lot of support systems. Matter of fact, uh this Saturday I'm gonna be running in the domestic it's domestic violence awareness month, October. Oh, okay. This Saturday, our Lady of the Lake is the purple run uh for domestic violence. Uh so there's a 5k out at our Lady of the Lake to support uh raise money for domestic violence awareness.

SPEAKER_02:

And and you know, one of the things that uh about these cases is they're they're complicated, they they deal with very, you know, personal, human issues, relationships between people. Um, and in some of these uh smaller uh some of these larger jurisdictions like Bear County, we have specialized courts to deal with these and specialized divisions. Can you kind of touch on that?

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So here in Bear County, if you have a family violence case and this includes these roommate cases, you're gonna go either into county court seven or county court 13. You're not gonna, you're the and those case courts handle nothing but domestic violence cases. And we have so many that each of those courts have an impact court to help them out with the overflow. So there's a county court seven impact and a county court 13 impact that is staffed by visiting judges every week.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I know even with these specialty courts, um there are so many cases that there's there's still a backlog of domestic violence cases here in San Antonio. I I think uh, you know, the Office of Court Administration, who does these studies on caseloads, determined that Bear County needed another three misdemeanor judges just to handle the the deluge of these family violence cases.

SPEAKER_03:

But part of the backlog is because we have too many of these family violence cases that aren't really family violence cases.

SPEAKER_02:

So that would be the scenario we discuss, like where my son and his roommate and and and not just that because remember, it's family member two.

SPEAKER_03:

We got a lot of family violence cases in Bear County where it's it's um graduation or fifth uh kindergarten graduation party, and two brothers get into a fight. Right. Okay. That was not the intent of it's it clearly is part of the definition because they're family, they're brothers, but that wasn't what we got into the business for. We are trying to stop people in terribly abusive relationships from being abused. Right. Two brothers get into a fight at a graduation party is is it's not, and of course, the brother wants to drop charges, and in those cases, we should just hurry up and drop them. Right. Because that's contributing to the backlog. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, but it but instead they get classified as family violence, and now you have these specialty courts, and there's a uh a division of the Bay County.

SPEAKER_03:

Where I would argue that go through and find all these cases that are just sister and sister or brother and brother that aren't really what it's is and hurry up and get rid of those. Right. Okay, right. You have you have an obligation as a prosecutor to at least reach out to the victim. But I'm telling you, most of those cases the family's like, no, we we wish we hadn't called police. Right, absolutely. Okay, yeah. Uh, but but because but because that is taking away from the reason why we were there is to to help people in abusive relationships.

SPEAKER_02:

And by you know, moving forward on some of these cases and putting them in that family violence pipeline, you're clogging the pipeline and you're you're kind of delaying justice for some of people who are you know in uh abusive relationships.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And there's there's but the the officers really aren't don't have discretion on it. They're told if there's been an assault in this family, they have to make an arrest. Okay. So it's not from the law enforcement end that it's the problem is that there has to be a way for the prosecutors to identify these type of cases and quickly dismiss them because so it doesn't get clogged up the cases they really need to put their focus on.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that that raises an interesting question, uh, because you know, I uh have always heard uh and and I'd like you to address this that, well, if the the cops get called and they make the scene, somebody's getting arrested. Somebody's somebody's being taken away that night. What how true is that?

SPEAKER_03:

That is SAPD policy. If there's evidence of violence, they have to make an arrest.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so that is true. Now, that doesn't mean they have to make an arrest if they come out there and there's no evidence of assault. If somebody they can they still have some discretion if somebody says they hit me and they can't, and they look and they don't see any evidence of injury. But a lot of times, even then, they're in abundance of caution, they're gonna make the arrest and be uh based on the say so of somebody who says they got assaulted.

SPEAKER_02:

So let me ask you this. I mean, is it if you take the scenario where it's the two brothers getting into the fight at the graduation party, and you know, so it would be SAPD policy in that scenario to arrest and charge uh family violence, assault family violence. Um, at once it hits the Bear County DA's office, I'm assuming the prosecutor can change the charge and say, hey, this is just regular assault.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but no, they're not gonna they're either gonna like file it as a family assault or dismiss it. Why is that? Because that's that's clearly it's not like the household thing that you brought up earlier in the show. Okay. That's clearly within the definition. I mean, so brothers is is because we still have a lot of family violence assaults where people uh people uh kids on drugs are assaulting their mom or dad. So we're not really dismissing those if they're really truly family. Yeah, though though we we can just charge the assaults as regular assaults when they're roommates and stuff, which really isn't the def the true reason we're there, but we're still gonna go forward on the family on the family members stuff. So these are these are very complicated cases. Yeah, no, they're none of them are simple, and and just and so that's why in the backlog, because if I'm an intake prosecutor doing DWIs, is I I look at the BAC probable cause for the arrest, I'm good, I fill out the information. Okay. Here for a family violence case, you know, you're required to kind of reach out to the victim, and of course they don't call you back because they're they're told if they don't call you back, they'll drop it, which is not true. Right. Generally, if you don't call back, they're gonna file it. Right. Okay. Um, and and so it's it's takes more at the intake level to go through it. Okay, but but I'm uh my argument's always been but on some of those cases where it's brother on brother or room, like there was a time where two guys can get into a fight and law enforcement wasn't involved, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right. You just settle it, right?

SPEAKER_03:

We we took care of it, and it wasn't so so like the how we started this show where two people live in the same apartment, you know, do we really need to be processed now? Now the concern is is somebody gonna get shot next time because they're mad? Is it gonna escalate? Yeah, is it gonna escalate? But if you're if if you if everybody's saying it's not a big deal, the my one roommate called the police and and it's not a big deal when it drop, that should be an easy decision for the DA's office to just drop that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and and one of the things that I always found interesting about family violence cases that makes these types of cases unique is it's really one of the only types of cases where the victim of the case may have an interest in the outcome of it because of their spouse's job. Exactly. Or their their means of making a living. So you may have uh a victim saying, Well, wait a minute, if he gets convicted of this or he gets put on probation, he loses his job and we can't pay our mortgage, we can't, you know, do these things. So that they're unique in that way. And I always thought that was kind of an interesting facet of them.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's something I took really seriously as a prosecutor. Like, I don't like I didn't want them to lose their jobs. So that may be a case where where, well, let's, if everything's going okay, I'll dismiss it in the a couple months, uh, just to make sure. Uh obviously, if there's not like really, I'm not concerned that it's like a sleeping with the enemy situation. Right, right. Most people don't know what that reference is anymore. But but uh yeah, so yeah, because if they lose their job, you're adding more stress to the household, and there's gonna be more problems, right? Okay, and so that is so if somebody comes to me and says, I don't want to pursue these charges, the and the police were jerks, they should I never wanted to pursue the case of the difference from the get-go, and I I clearly see that's not true, then then yeah, I'm not gonna be sympathetic to that. But if somebody's like, look, what he did was wrong, I understand what he did is wrong, but we can't live if he loses his job. And then I got to confirm will he really lose his job, or can I do like some kind of deferred where he can keep his job? Or if there's a companion 911 call interference with 911, we don't have time to get to that, right? But but uh can I plead him to that and keep his job? And he still takes the batter's intervention class. We we get we get the the intervention, you get the end result that you're you needed without him losing his job. Absolutely. Absolutely now. I'm not trying to say I'm sympathetic to the guy who committed the assault, I'm saying I'm sympathetic to the person who's victimized who's gonna get victimized worse by being losing their home. Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, well, uh, this is a very large topic, and our 30 minutes just flew by fast. And I feel like we we barely even touched on this subject. We we really could probably talk like three different shows about that. Yeah, absolutely. And and we may have to do that in a future episode, but uh, we're gonna end it here. So we want to thank you for listening to us. This is So You Got Arrested from Brit Criminal Defense with Steve Barrera and Scott Simpson.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening to So You Got Arrested. If you found this podcast helpful, share it with someone who needs to hear it. For more legal insights and real time from the front lines of the Texas justice system, follow us and subscribe. And remember Brit Criminal Defense at your back. For more information, at least.