How to fight an Order of Protection in Missouri. Chris Combs and Steve Waterkotte of Combs Waterkotte discuss how to fight or protest Orders of Protection and Ex Parte cases in Missouri.
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Steve Waterkotte: How this typically unfolds is you are served with a petition, you get a knock on the door or at work, handed over a petition with a number of allegations contained in there, a number of forms of relief the petitioner is requesting. They will typically set these for hearing within two to three weeks, sometimes even sooner. I always say these are one of the fastest moving cases through our judicial system. It’s done on purpose, there’s a rational behind it, because somebody may be in danger. They can’t have a court date waiting three months out, so they’ll have a court date within two weeks.
When I get a call, usually somebody’s calling and saying, “Hey, I have court next week. I have court in two weeks,” which is not an issue, but I always tell these folks, “Time is of the essence.” You need to hire an attorney, because we have work to do on our end, which we’re able to do. We have a system in place for when we get these cases in our office, we make sure we give them the proper attention and detail it deserves, and that we’re well prepared walking into this hearing.
Chris Combs: And one thing I’ll say regarding orders of protection – and this is my law partner’s specialty – most of the case law out there on orders of protection, he’s created, or at least quite a bit of it.
But what I will say is it’s a blend of criminal law, family law and civil law. And what people don’t understand is, “Oh, this is a restraining order. I don’t care if I ever see this person again, right?” So sometimes they just walk in there and they don’t realize that judge can make housing decisions, meaning you could be put out of your own home, they could make temporary custody decisions with children. The gravity of what that judge can do, they can order you to do batterers intervention.
And again, this is Steve’s specialty, but people walk in there thinking, “Oh, it’s just a restraining order. I don’t care if I ever see this person again,” but the ramifications can be immense. Having a full order of protection against you is not good.
And furthermore, people do not realize when they walk in that courtroom it is not just about, “Hey, I have to stay away from this person.” The judge has broad discretion on what they can do.
Scott Michael Dunn: Wow.
Steve Waterkotte: Yeah. And the fact of the matter is when it’s gotten to this point, they’re not calling me to say, “Hey, can you fight this? I still want to try and talk to them.”
That point is taken, right? They get served with an order of protection, they’re not going, “Hey, I need to get a lawyer to fight this so you allow me to continue to try to be around them.” Nobody’s calling me to defend these things for that purpose. It’s the reasons that Chris just said, all these things that a judge can do, custody, the whole gamut of things that he just listed.
What we’ll get to as well is that these things become part of your record. So that can have damaging consequences and ramifications as you progress through life and get jobs and things like that.
If you need Missouri’s leading order of protection defense team to defend your rights and freedom, speak to one of our attorneys today at (314) 900-HELP or contact us online for a free case review.
