Salt Lake City, UT asked in Domestic Violence for Colorado

Q: Is it normal for public defender to ask the accused to take the victim back there home state after released

Assault in the second degree class 6 felony.accussed of trying to strangle my girlfriend while driving down road.i was in work truck.50 foot truck and trailer loaded 106,000 thousand pounds.before court asked if im willing to take her back to idaho where we live.then once we get there start the no contact order.

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1 Lawyer Answer
Sean Maye
Sean Maye
Answered
  • Domestic Violence Lawyer
  • Denver, CO
  • Licensed in Colorado

A: To be perfectly honest, this question is a bit hard to follow. I read the question as - "Is a public defender allowed to advise their client that they may transport a domestic violence victim outside the state?"

Assuming this is your question, I would respond in a few ways:

1. You are divulging private information that should always remain confidential between you and your attorney. If you are going to ask someone this particular question, it should only occur (at a minimum) during a consultation call with another attorney, where privilege/confidentiality would theoretically attach. You could be waiving confidentiality with your current attorney by writing this here. Best advice is to no post anything further about this here or elsewhere online.

2. Your attorney can generally advise you to do anything so long as they are not advising you to violate the law and so long as they are not otherwise violating professional ethics rules. I don't have enough information from your post to know if they are misadvising you or not.

3. Your attorney advising that you are allowed to transport a DV victim out of state may be proper if there is a protection order that is limited in scope, or that has been modified, to allow you to have physical contact with the victim and to leave the state - which is rarely ever granted in DV cases, absent very mitigating circumstances. Whether this applies to your situation or not can only be answered by speaking with you about your case and by reviewing any protection order currently in place against you.

4. Even if your attorney advised you that you are "allowed" to travel with your partner/DV victim out of state, it's probably not in your best interest. Anything can happen and, if the police get called, you will surely get charged with violating your protection order to the extent that such orders always require "no harassment, molestation, or intimidation" - which can mean pretty much anything.

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