Victim looking for advice self incriminating Domestic Violence & Civil Orders

You can contact the prosecutor or the police officer who took the retort and inform them you no longer want to cooperate.
They might still continue against your wishes, but if they know you are uncooperative they might find an easy way out.
The decision to drop the charges is theirs, not yours.

 

If you don't show up you could be arrested.
Don't fail to show up.
If you show up nobody can force you to speak. If you do speak, tell the truth.

Whether you retell the story or not the prosecuting attorney can get your prior statements admitted into evidence.

 

You didn't file charges you made a police report and a prosecutor filed charges.

You're in a bad relationship if you were assaulted. Get out of it before you end up dead.

 

You had better either be dead or in a coma.

There really aren't any good reasons other than those.

 

Too bad you can't. If you didn't want to file a police report you shouldn't have. Too late now.

Get out of your relationship before you get seriously hurt or killed.

 

If you're boyfriend committed a crime then the 5th Amendment doesn't let you avoid incriminating HIM.

 

If you think you might have criminal consequences by testifying then you need to hire an attorney.

Again, you have an order to appear in court. You need to appear. You can not be forced to say a word once there... Although you may be encouraged or influenced to do so.

Prosecuting attorneys have a bag of tricks for victims and witnesses who do not want to cooperate. It seems they are prepared to reach into that bag to compel your testimony.

Fail to show up and you'll likely have a warrant for your arrest.

 

All the shady lawyers I know are doing time in the BIG House, being used as sex slaves for Big Bubba, Lights Out Louie, Pine Log Paul, and Wicked Willie; while wearing ONLY a skin tight manthong, gussied up with lipstick, a long blonde wig, and eye shadow.

 

It might be better to consider what might happen to you when he administers your next beating.

Beating after beating might be headed your way, leading to your maiming or death.

Research the statistics about domestic violence, the batterer rarely stops battering the victim.

Some victims end up dead.

If you need legal advice, you HIRE yourself a lawyer.

We discuss legal issues on this site.

We don't dispense legal advice on this site, although some of us are lawyers, none of us are YOUR lawyer.

 

Well.... sometimes moral advice is just as good as the legal advice. You created this mess because you're allowing a women beater to continue down this path. Next time he could kill you. You could kill him. Then you're going to blame the system because it didn't help you. Yet your wanting the keep the system from helping you.

So here is the deal. Both of you should go right now to marriage counseling. Anger management classes, drug classes, alcohol counseling.... whatever the route that you two idiots need. The system is designed to help. If you don't want the help then DON"T use the system by calling 911. Plus, if there are children in this mess.... SHAME on both of you.

Go plea whatever your little heart desires.... Maybe they will lock you up for not telling the truth. Maybe they will lock him for what he did.

 

Here's the thing. The ball is no longer in your court. You might not even be called to testify. They might not need your testimony depending upon the facts and evidence in the case. If you are called to testify and purposely give untrue or misleading testimony, THAT is a crime. And yes, you CAN be prosecuted for it. Don't sacrifice yourself and your freedom to bail out another criminal. This might be your first brush with the justice system, but it ain't the first rodeo for the judge and attorneys. You aren't going to outwit them but suddenly claiming amnesia or changing the story. Think you are the first SO to try and pull such a stunt? You aren't. Far from it. Even the shadiest attorney isn't going to advise you to circumvent the system dishonestly. That is how they lose their license to practice law.

What is it that you would be incriminating yourself for doing? His trial and NOT your trial. The judge doesn't give a hoot what you have done and isn't going to/can't sentence a witness for something they admit to while testifying.

The reason you keep hearing over and over to leave this guy is because the posters here have seen all too many times what happens when someone doesn't. DV laws in this country are notoriously lax and prosecutions pitiful at best. If the state is willing to actually take this one to trial especially knowing you aren't cooperative, that says a lot.

 

No. You cannot do both. If you take the 5th, you don't answer anything else, unless a judge orders you to do so. And you sure as shit don't lie about the extent to which you remember things.

Shady lawyers typically charge just as much as non-shady lawyers.

Suddenly you're a legal scholar? Obviously, we have no way of knowing what you already told the police, but if you've already incriminated yourself, then it may be too late. And, if you what you already told the cops isn't self-incriminating, then you can be compelled to confirm it on the stand.

At the end of the day, we're a bunch of anonymous strangers on the internet who have no vested interest in what happens to you, and you've already been told everything possible based on what you've posted. You now get to make some choices -- some of which may be very difficult.