Alleged Victims Willing to Help Defense in a Domestic Violence Case
Ohio Domestic Violence Attorney Joslyn explains alleged victims willing to help defense in a domestic violence case. If you’ve been arrested for a domestic violence offense in Ohio, call Joslyn Law Firm at (614) 444-1900 today for a consultation to discuss your case.
In many of these cases, the alleged victim is the one asking for our help, for the person that’s being accused of the crime. And what I’m quick to inform, alleged victims and defendants is that, even if they want the case dropped, even if they tell the prosecutor they want the case dropped, even if they tell the judge that they don’t want the case, the state is going to pursue the case. The domestic violence charge is not the alleged victim’s charge, it’s the state of Ohio’s charge. And they’re gonna do what they think is in the victim’s best interest, they’re gonna do what they think is in society’s best interest. And that means that they’re going to pursue this chare with or without the consent of the alleged victim. That does not mean that the prosecution or the state is going to get what they want. In fact, in many of these cases, where there’s an alleged victim that does not want the case to go forward, they become uncooperative with the prosecutor’s offices. And uniquely in domestic violence cases, most of these cases don’t really involve any other evidence, other than what ht alleged victim might have told police officers or others on the date of the incident. And because of that, they are crucial to the prosecutor’s case. And when a victim becomes uncooperative in the domestic violence cases, at some point,w when you start to near trial, a prosecutor starts to realize, that if we have a trial, they’re not going to be able to prove their case, without a cooperative victim. Many of these victims are not even willing to show up to court. And when they don’t show up for court, it becomes nearly impossible for the prosecutor to be able to prove the case. And that really comes down to, what’s called, the right of confrontation, okay. Because the accused has the right to confront their accusers. And although a victim might have made statements to law enforcement or to other parties on the incident date, those statements are usually in writing, made out of court, and for evidentiary purposes, those are called hearsay statements. And hearsay statements are not admissible unless they fall under a hearsay exception. And for that reasons, those statements, even if they were made in writing, even if they made them to a police officer, are most likely, not going to be admissible at the time of trial, without them being present, and willing to testify as to what their previous statements were. And for those reasons, oftentimes, on the eve of trial, with an uncooperative alleged victim, the prosecution will decide to dismiss the case. The prosecution will aggressively pursue this up to the eleventh hour, They are not gonna concede during any part of the negotiation, or during the criminal court process. It’s very uncommon for them to, at a first court date say “I know my victim is uncooperative so I’m going to dismiss this case.” if anything, this never happens. What they’ll do, is they’ll send out their victim advocates, their investigators, their police officers, to try to get ahold of their victims, try to reel them into the system, and try to get them in check, so that they can regain confidence and strength within their own case. Many times, mostly because they don’t have the resources to do so on every single one of these cases, they’re not able to do so, and as we get closer to the trial date, you’ll stary to see the prosecutor offer better deals, agree to reductions in a case, and then ultimately if it hits the point where we’re either about to go into trial or not, they oftentimes might dismiss their case.