Westport Risk of Injury Court Arraignments 

Westport risk of injury court arraignments occur following arrests for risk of injury offenses. Domestic violence is often implied in risk of injury cases, which is why they are treated so seriously. If you have been charged with risk of injury, a capable defense attorney could attempt to mitigate the conditions of your probation and protect your rights. Contact a lawyer that can advocate for you.

Arraignment Procedure

During Westport risk of injury court arraignments, the first thing that happens is that the arrested person has to report to the Norwalk Superior Court. On the next business day, there will be an arraignment and that court is located at #17 Belden Avenue in Norwalk, Connecticut. The person who is being charged with risk of injury will have to appear in the arraignment courtroom before the judge and the judge will listen to the facts of the case and the judge will typically decide right then if a protective order needs to be issued with respect to the child who is the alleged victim of the risk of injury.

The judge can either issue a protective order that removes the child from the home or the judge can issue a protective order to remove the person who is arrested from the child’s home. Depending on the circumstances, the judge can issue a protective order that prohibits the person who is arrested, from contacting the child. The judge can also issue conditions of release, which are conditions issued by the judge and enforced by the bail commissioner that govern when and how a person is allowed to leave the courthouse.

What Might Conditions of Release Include?

For example, the conditions of release might include getting mental health counseling or parenting classes, anger management, or other sorts of court-monitoring procedures, and those can also be issued during Westport risk of injury court arraignments. It is very important, especially for people arrested in Westport with risk of injury charges, to contact a Westport and Norwalk attorney to be present on the arraignment date because the judge can issue really extensive conditions of release.

If a person has an attorney at the arraignment with them, the attorney can argue against some of those conditions that might be really imposing on the person’s schedule, their work schedule, or their time with their children. It is helpful to be represented by an attorney who can make sure that a defendant is not being set to fail because of the extensive conditions.

What Types of Protective or Restraining Orders Could I Face?

The protective orders that can be put in place for risk of injury allegations in Westport can include: a full no-contact protective order, which means that the person arrested cannot contact the child or the alleged victim, a residential stay-away, which means that the person arrested cannot go to the home of the child even if they previously resided together before the arrest, or a partial protective order that just protects the child from being threatened, harassed, abused, or stalked by the person who is arrested.

Judges can also issue conditions of release, which can include GPS monitoring, which is when a person has to wear an ankle monitor and the office of the bail commissioner tracks where the person is going. They can also include anger management. The judge might tell someone to take anger management courses in order depending on what their actual offense was. The judge can also impose a curfew. He can impose that the person has to attend parenting classes, mental health counseling, or really any form of therapy that would make sense to the facts of the case.

Can a Westport Domestic Violence Lawyer Argue Against Court-Imposed Conditions?

A domestic violence lawyer can argue against court-imposed conditions and that is why it is really important to have a Westport domestic violence attorney with someone during their first court date to make sure that the person is not given all these court-imposed conditions that they cannot comply with given a work schedule. Often, the anger management counseling or the classes that the judge orders the person to complete interfere with work schedules, and tend to be in the middle of the afternoon.

This makes it difficult for someone to meet the conditions, and it kind of puts the person in a position in which they are going to fail before they even have a chance to accomplish anything. So, it is really important to have an attorney there to argue against some of those court-imposed conditions, or to argue that the person is able to do them privately or see a private therapist or counselor to just kind of put the person on a better position to succeed in the court. If an individual has been charged with risk of injury and has questions about Westport risk of injury court arraignments, they should seek the counsel of an experienced domestic violence attorney that could advocate for them.