Restraining Order, TRO, Court Order, Violation of Court Order.
What To Do When… You Violate a Protective Order.
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The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, Will Knows Weed, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, the legalization of marijuana in Virginia, divorce 101, Child Support, There is Still Hope, and others.
What To Do When… You Violate a Protective Order.
On this legal video podcast chat in Critzer Cardani’s What To Do When… podcast series, join our hosts Scott Cardani, Jackie Critzer, and also Will Smith as they share about What To Do When… You Violate a Protective Order. This video and audio podcast episode focuses on how to walk out the legal process of protective orders from various positions and what that process includes here in Virginia.
Tune in today for not only our top take-aways, but also legal insight about the following subject matters and other helpful action items from a ‘legal chat slant’ from Critzer Cardani’s legal partners.
* Protective orders and violations in Virginia.
* Will Smith explains the different types of protective orders in Virginia, including emergency and preliminary orders, and how they can be extended or made permanent.
* The importance of seeking legal counsel before and during a protective order.
* Scott Cardani explains the importance of service of protective orders, emphasizing that only the person with the order has a burden to keep it.
The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, Will Knows Weed, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, the legalization of marijuana in Virginia, divorce 101, Child Support, There is Still Hope and others.
Thank you for sending us your feedback, questions, or topic suggestions for future #WTDW | What To Do When… episodes by emailing [email protected].
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Transcript:
What To Do When… Intro 00:01
Welcome to What To Do When… A podcast from real lawyers with real perspective, where we explore a variety of legal issues and scenarios. Each week we focus on a new topic and discuss what to do when and if any of these legal scenarios ever happened to you or a loved one. With over 40 years of combined legal experience, our hosts offer their unique perspectives and insights on a range of real life legal situations.
Jackie Critzer 0:28
Hey, welcome back to another podcast here at Critzer Cardani in Richmond, Virginia. I’m Jackie.
Scott Cardani 0:34
I’m Scott.
Will Smith III 0:33
I’m Will.
Scott Cardani 0:36
Hey – what do we have on docket today you guys?
Will Smith III 0:38
I think we’re talking about What To Do When… You Have a Protective Order in Place.
Scott Cardani 0:42
Oh, protective orders. That’s scary.
Will Smith III 0:44
Or even more importantly, I think What To Do When.. You Violate a Protective Order.
Jackie Critzer 0:48
OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh…..
Scott Cardani 0:49
Definitely need to talk about violations of protective orders. They’re a big deal here. We deal with a lot of those and….
Jackie Critzer 0:56
have a question. Yeah. Is that the same as a restraining order?
Will Smith III 0:59
It’s the exact same thing, we just don’t use that term here in the state of Virginia.
Jackie Critzer 1:02
How about that?
Scott Cardani 1:02
How about that. So I know you all think that’s silly, but we’ll have people think they are different things. So that’s why I bring that up. And again, it’s no condemnation. If you came from California or somewhere else, you probably think of a restraining order. And sometimes you get people looking at you like a deer in headlights, because they’ve never heard of a restraining order. And they know protective order.
Jackie Critzer 1:20
We see it on TV all the time. They call it a TRO, you see that a lot. And like, you know, lawyer shows, temporary restraining order, usually in the context of a business. But in Virginia it’s protective order.
Scott Cardani 1:31
Let’s go through it real quick. Jackie, what is a protective order?
Jackie Critzer 1:34
A protective order is a piece of paper issued by a court that requires that one person have no contact with another person or people whoever’s named on that piece of paper.
Scott Cardani 1:46
Is it always no contact?
Jackie Critzer 1:49
It can sometimes have limited contact, it can say peaceful contact only, it can say contact related to the children only. But the most stark, the strictest protective order is no contact, and they have to stay so many feet away. Sometimes it’s 1,000 – 500 – 300. Which means that if I walk if I am the subject of the protective order, which means I’m not allowed to have contact with somebody else, because we’ve had that with with Scott and I walk into the grocery store and Scott’s in the grocery store, I have to turn around and leave not Scott.
Scott Cardani 2:25
What if I come in after you?
Jackie Critzer 2:28
I still have to leave.
Scott Cardani 2:29
Wait a minute. That’s not fair.
Jackie Critzer 2:30
It’s not fair.
Scott Cardani 2:31
Okay. What if you follow me around to every grocery store in the area?
Jackie Critzer 2:36
Well, I am going to end up with a violation of the protective order. If I’m within so many feet of you if I’m contacting you, but Will tell us what contact means.
Will Smith III 2:46
Well, contact is anything I mean, it’s not like it’s just you know, one on one seeing somebody in person. It’s going to be email, text message, going through a third party, you know, to relay a message.
Jackie Critzer 2:56
A third party. Can we talk about that? I think some people don’t really understand that.
Scott Cardani 2:56
You’re the third party.
Jackie Critzer 3:01
Okay.
Scott Cardani 3:02
I have a protective order. And I’m not allowed to speak to Will.
Jackie Critzer 3:04
Okay.
Scott Cardani 3:05
Because he’s scared of me. So I say, Jackie,
Jackie Critzer 3:08
Yeah.
Can you tell Will he’s a jack…
That would be the third party contact, asking someone to contact the person, you’re not supposed to talk to you.
Scott Cardani 3:17
What if I tell him to hit you?
Jackie Critzer 3:19
I think that’s probably also a violation.
Scott Cardani 3:21
OK, just making sure.
Jackie Critzer 3:22
Okay.
Scott Cardani 3:23
You know, we’re being silly a little bit because people really don’t get it. And it’s amazing to me how many times I’ve had to tell people, judges used to say a smoke signal is contact.
Will Smith III 3:32
Yeah.
Scott Cardani 3:32
So, you know, if you have the intent to get somebody else’s attention, then that’s contact.
Jackie Critzer 3:33
Social Media. Oh, my gosh, social, if you post about somebody on social media that is recognizable as you trying to post about them. I’m not sure how you could do that without naming them. But let’s just pretend you can.
Scott Cardani 3:51
I’ll give you a prime example. For all you people watching the media right now, Donald Trump’s trial, and his gag order is a sort sort of the same thing as a protective order in the sense that he’s not allowed to say anything about the trial. So the judges, again, and again, said, you’re posting on social media, because I’m just reposting what other people are saying, then the judge is saying no, you can’t repost. So for instance..
Jackie Critzer 4:13
Ohhhh….
Scott Cardani 4:13
You know, if I if you posted that Will’s a jack, and then I went on my social media and just reposted that can be viewed as my intention to contact Well, in some way.
Will Smith III 4:25
Absolutely would be for sure. And the thing is, you know, as you were saying, what kind of joking about this a little bit, but a lot of times the people that you get protective orders against people, you’re familiar with people, you’re friends with their family members, right? I mean, that’s usually how it is. And so you’re thinking, well, the Court told me not to have contact with a person. I know them well enough, though, and they’re not going to tell on me if I do have contact with them and talk to them, or text them or email them or in some, you know, inadvertent way make contact. So I think that people you know, have a tendency to downplay it, but not realize how serious is if you have that court order.
Jackie Critzer 4:53
So, what happens if you do violate it and they report it right. So now the person you thought wasn’t going to report it reports It now you’re facing not only the protective order, but now a violation of the protective order. Is there a big penalty for that?
Will Smith III 5:06
Absolutely. And you know, the protective order civil in nature, right. And by that, we mean, you’re not going to go to jail when you have a protective order issued. But once you violate that protective order, you’ve now committed a class one misdemeanor, which can put you into jail for 12 months, at the very end.
Scott Cardani 5:21
It has to be jail for one day.
Will Smith III 5:23
Yep.
Scott Cardani 5:24
So I mean, if you if you’re convicted of violating it, it for instance, and we’ve seen so many simple things, like Will would say, like an inadvertent text or an inadvertent thing on social media? Or worse yet, will text me and says, Hey, Scott, blah, blah, blah? And I respond, yes, no, I’ve just contacted him.
Will Smith III 5:45
Exactly.
Scott Cardani 5:45
So I’ve seen if that goes to court, there’s no way out of it for me to say was just responding to him? Because that’s what everybody does. I was just responding. No, you cannot respond.
Jackie Critzer 5:54
You can’t answer that phone call.
Scott Cardani 5:55
You can’t answer any of it. If you pick up the phone call, knowing it’s Will. And I say, hey, well, what’s up, you just violated a protective order. And you think it doesn’t happen? I spent 10 years down in the city of Richmond man. And what would happen is people get a protective order, and then go to the jail and pick up the person they had a protective order for. And since that person stepped out of line, and they were like, Oh, I got you. So it was a big thing down in the city, Richmond for a long time of using it as a sword. And to control people and to do things.
Jackie Critzer 6:24
So – what about a group text, what if all three of us, or seven or 10, or 15 of us are in a group text, and there’s a protective order somewhere in the mix of that, but for ease of discussion, same protective order between Scott and Will and the three of us are having some communication about the law firm, of course, Violation.
Will Smith III 6:44
I think it’s if it’s if it’s generally speaking, I don’t think there’s any I don’t know that would be a violation. But it seems like you’re really putting yourself in a bad position to then have something interpreted to be directed at Scott or directed at me or whoever the person at the protective order is in for.
Scott Cardani 7:01
Again, you may win the battle, but you’re gonna be maybe arrested, all those kinds of things. So again, our advice is, if you have a protective order, you gotta stay out. And I’ll give you a prime example. I had a guy, a Polish guy, who had a mail order bride. She got here to obviously to get here. When she got here. First thing she did was file a protective order. So she kept her immigration status because she had a violence, right statute. What she did after that was, she would go to a friend’s house, they had mutual friends, be there in the back room, and they would come over for dinner. So when he walked in the door, because she knew if she got violations, her protective order would be extended for two years, she would be here permanently.
Will Smith III 7:44
Yeah.
Scott Cardani 7:44
And she kept doing it. So I mean, he had to, he would literally walk in think he’s going to John’s house for dinner, and they’d be having dinner, and all sudden she’d walk out the back room with her phone and call and police said you just violated your protective order, buddy.
Will Smith III 7:57
Wow.
Scott Cardani 7:58
And so again, in that situation, you have somebody that vindictive, and they trust me, they’re out there. When you walk into the room, and they’re there, what do you do?
Will Smith III 8:10
Run.
Scott Cardani 8:11
Run kids run. Don’t say, Hey, you shouldn’t be here. Don’t say anything to them. If you remove yourself immediately, a judge is most likely not going to find you guilty.
Jackie Critzer 8:21
Right.
Scott Cardani 8:21
But when you say the word like, How dare you do this to me, I can’t believe you sent me all those things, are contact.
Will Smith III 8:27
Right.
Scott Cardani 8:27
So you got set up and you have contact, then you make it worse by commenting on it. Yep. And as I see it all the time. And I see violations of that all the time where, you know, because what happens is you’re so angry, you want to tell them how wrong they are. And you telling them how wrong they are is really the violation not really that you even showed up to the wrong place.
Will Smith III 8:47
That’s right, that’s what’s really going to get you in trouble. And so you know, we’re talking about is, you know, this being a class one misdemeanor, you facing up to 12 days in jail, a minimum of one day in jail, right?
Scott Cardani 8:50
12 months
Will Smith III 8:55
12 months in jail, correct – one day in jail, if found, found guilty in that protective order also gets extended right for two more years after that.
Scott Cardani 9:04
So the date that predicts the date of the violation or the date you go to court, actually, so you can really extend protective orders. tricky way that way, by getting the case extended out a few months. And then you get two years after that. So all of a sudden, you’re you’ve had a protective order in place for three years.
Jackie Critzer 9:21
What’s the minimum a protective order can be in place? Six months?
Will Smith III 9:25
Well, really an emergency protective order for 72 hours, right? And then what? Then 14 days for preliminary protective order. You can also get it for six months, if it is an ex parte protective order issued by a magistrate or a judge. That means if the respondent doesn’t show up and just the petitioners asking, and then the longest you can get so when we say a permanent protective order, it’s not really permanent, right? Permanent protective order the state of Virginia for two years until you move to get it extended after that to your date.
Scott Cardani 9:52
All right, let me ask a question that cuz you brought it up. So you got to get a protective order against me. We go through the Emergency we go through the preliminary, you have the actual hearing on it, which is the third step, and I don’t show, you want to get it for six months.
Will Smith III 10:07
At that point, it’s for six months, if you have one, if you had noticed to be there, exactly I noticed to be there, then that you can get it for the two year period. If you just decide not to show up and think, Well, they can’t get it for six months, you’re wrong. You’re gonna go when asking for protective order, you’re gonna get it for two years.
Jackie Critzer 10:24
If you get a two year protective order, and they can’t find the person upon whom they’re supposed to serve the protective order.
Scott Cardani 10:34
And that is another big thing.
Jackie Critzer 10:36
It doesn’t exist. I mean, it’s there, but it’s not enforceable.
Scott Cardani 10:39
What does that mean, sir? So explain to the people what we mean by Sir, because that’s a legal term that we use all the time to throw around, but most people don’t know what it means.
Will Smith III 10:46
Well, service in this instance, is going to mean that you are presented with the paperwork by a law enforcement agent, police officer, Deputy with the sheriff’s department and sign that you’ve they’ve handed this piece of paper to you. They’re signing it, that that this date, and at this time, I gave this piece of paper to this person.
Jackie Critzer 11:04
Not a text message.
Scott Cardani 11:05
Yeah, no, no. The importance of that is so you have knowledge, I have knowledge that there’s a protective order for me now. Because if not, then again, and I I’ve tried this case many, many times in my career where there hasn’t been that service. And there’s this big trial, I’m like motion to strike. What do you mean, he was never served, there’s no knowledge of it, he can’t be held liable for something he doesn’t have knowledge.
Will Smith III 11:26
Correct.
Scott Cardani 11:27
So big deal, these protective orders, we see it all the time. These are big things in our practice, because people feel like there’s little white workarounds, and they can do something a little bit. And what we see is those people spending time in jail for minimum contact. It’s usually something that seems legit, something that seems like they should be able to do, for instance, like stay in the store, like Jackie was talking about, I shouldn’t have to leave. They’re following me. Well, I’m sorry. It’s like a one way street. You get to drive down any way you want. But the other person can only go that one way. And the one way is away from you. So you can keep people you’ve got to hear this because I tell people this all the time. And I swear people don’t get it. The only person who has a burden on a protective order is the person with the protective order. So Will getting a protective for me he has no obligation about he can contact me all day long every day.
Jackie Critzer 12:24
You might have trouble keeping the protective order. If you go back to court.
Will Smith III 12:27
Sure.
Scott Cardani 12:27
Sure.
Jackie Critzer 12:27
We’re not talking about that. It’s not a violation for will to contact Scott, if there’s a protective order against Scott.
Scott Cardani 12:34
Great clarification. Because that’s the deal. But people don’t get that they’re like, well, they’re contacting me and my response. And I don’t mean to be cold about it, because I don’t care. I mean, in other words, we’re gonna maybe file motion, I care that way. But I mean, as far as you can’t call them back, you can’t answer the text. You can’t respond to the social media post. For instance, we’ll get on social media. It says, Scott’s a creep, blah, blah, blah. And I say, No, it’s not true. I just contacted him.
Will Smith III 12:58
There you go.
Scott Cardani 12:59
So I mean, you’ve got to really keep your head about it. If you get a protective order. You need to seek legal counsel before you get it. Number one, before you get to court on it. Don’t go to court, unrepresented think you can cause somebody to go I don’t care, I don’t want to talk to that person. Anyways, it’s not that simple.
Jackie Critzer 13:14
Oh, you give up a lot of rights. When you have a protective order, or maybe a lot of rights are taken from you when a protective order is issued against you. It has to do with possessing firearms, among other things, you really don’t want to just agree to a protective order.
Scott Cardani 13:26
Yeah. And we’ve had that podcast before. And you can look back on that on protective orders. But the bottom line is, you need to be fully represented. before, during and after a protective order.
Jackie Critzer 13:26
Correct.
Scott Cardani 13:27
So just remember, protective orders are not as simple as they may appear. And you want to be protected. If you get if you have a protective order, and you’re not sure what’s going on, call us sit down and have a consult with us. So we can explain to you what you can do and can’t do. Because some are written in a way, there are some loopholes and things like that things you can do but man, it is better to hedge your bets against doing nothing than is to do something that you’re not sure about doing.
Will Smith III 14:06
Yeah.
Jackie Critzer 14:06
Very good. Like and Subscribe. We look forward to hearing from you. If you have questions about protective orders, be sure to email us at [email protected]
Scott Cardani 14:16
Thank you have a good day.
What To Do When… Outro 14:18
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