Order of protection cases in Missouri aim to safeguard individuals from harm, but there is potential for emotional manipulation that can complicate outcomes. Some may exaggerate or fabricate abuse claims to gain an advantage in legal disputes, such as custody battles or divorce, leading to severe consequences for the accused, like loss of custody or restrictions on contact. Conversely, victims may feel pressured into seeking an order of protection, even when uncertain, or perpetrators may attempt to manipulate them into retracting their claims.
Judges and legal professionals must remain vigilant to signs of manipulation from both parties. Careful investigation, evidence assessment, and an understanding of the emotional complexities involved are crucial for ensuring fair outcomes. Recognizing manipulation is key to protecting individuals’ rights while maintaining the integrity of the legal process in these sensitive cases.
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Telling Your Side of the Story: Contesting an Order of Protection
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Episode Transcript
Steve Waterkotte: I always say these things can weaponize a petitioner. You get a boyfriend and girlfriend, the girlfriend files the order of protection against the boyfriend. She can’t stand him. She gets that full order of protection. Many times, these people – it weaponizes them. In the sense that, “Okay, now I got this piece of paper here in my pocket. I’m gonna call. ‘Hey, guess what? He showed up at this party and didn’t leave. He drove by my house. I saw his car drive through. I have a ring cam.’” So you see all that and it can, absolutely, and we represent folks all the time on violating an order of protection.
So that’s another big reason that, despite what your feelings are for the petitioner, – again, you usually aren’t calling our office saying, “Hey, I still don’t want to talk to that person.” You’re fighting this thing for a number of reasons. And that’s another big one, what Chris said, is that you don’t want the full order of protection entered. You also don’t want to weaponize that petitioner to make it easy for you to get arrested.
Scott Michael Dunn: Right. Sounds really complicated.
Steve Waterkotte: Yes. It can be if you get yourself entangled in one of these. I’ve seen it where they get the order of protection, a client gets one against them, they call us. I’ve represented a number of violations because, “He sent me a text message.” And it’s easy to manipulate that and to make it look and appear as if that person’s the one sending the text.
You can get yourself in a whole web of judicial proceedings as a result of the single order of protection.
Scott Michael Dunn: Let’s say I’m the respondent. I’m served an order of protection. The first thing I want to do if I think it’s not true is contact the person that filed the objections.
Steve Waterkotte: Regardless if it’s true or not true, call our office.
And you do it quickly. Too many folks wait. They don’t want to look at it because it’s too unpleasant perhaps. I hear that all the time. I just set it aside. I couldn’t look at it. I didn’t really care. She’s out of my life. He’s out of my life. And all of a sudden they look at it and their hearing date’s two days away. We get calls all the time, a day before, two days, three days before the hearing.
So you get served, whether it’s truthful, whether it’s a bunch of lies, you call us because then we can get you into our office. We can meet, discuss this and get to work, because these cases move quickly and, probably when you’re served, you’re going to have a hearing within a week to two weeks on that notice that you’ll get.
Chris Combs: By hearing, he means a full blown trial. Not with a jury. Go ahead –
Steve Waterkotte: Yeah, the hearing is to determine whether the full order is granted. Where we present evidence. And so there’s a lot to do in a little bit of the time. I always tell folks, “There’s a lot to do, but we do this so often that we have a system in place, and we can do that.”
But, you put yourself in a much better position by calling an attorney right away. Don’t get served, put it on the coffee table for a week, and then take a peek at it, and then it’s, “Hey, it’s 6 p.m., and I got court at 9 a m. the next day.” There’s some judges that won’t do continuances, and that’s a whole ‘nother deal.
So, you get served, you call us right away. We’ll get you in our office, walk you through this process, talk about those allegations, get ourselves prepared for the hearing.
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.
