Before you write to me with your arguments in favor of Domestic Violence laws, hear me out. I’m writing about something a little bit different.
Recently, we represented a fellow who was accused of domestic violence. We knew that his wife had called the police out to their house. We knew that after interviewing both the wife and husband, the police left, taking no one with them and telling no one to leave.
We also knew that a few days later, the wife had taken out an ex-parte domestic violence action and obtained an Order against our client. We knew from her application that she was accusing her husband of all sorts of horrid acts that, if established, should readily land him under the jail.
Which raised the question: what did she tell the police?
If she told the police what she told the Judge, the police would have led him away in cuffs and maybe bludgeoned him for good measure. But that didn’t happen.
Enter our law that doesn’t make sense.
We attempted to obtain the police report so that we could see what the wife told them. We ran up against Official Code of Georgia law §17-4-20.1(d) which says that if you were not arrested pursuant to a domestic violence incident, you cannot get a police report.
So if you need exoneration in court after the police on the scene at the time saw nothing to justify arresting you, you can’t get a report to help prove your innocence?
Yep.
Fortunately, as long as the Firm has been around, we know where there is a will, there is a way. The kind lady at the police department put us in touch with the police officers who responded to the wife’s call that day.
Sure enough, nothing happened that day. She made it all up.
When confronted with the evidence, the wife dropped the allegations and dismissed her action.
Justice prevailed, no thanks to this silly law that doesn’t make sense.
Michael uses laws that make sense to help all of our clients, from our offices in Marietta, Atlanta, Lawrenceville, Gainesville, Canton and Savannah.