DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HAS FEDERAL CONSEQUENCES!

If you are facing a domestic violence charge, or any charge that involves violence with a person you are related to or in a relationship with, you need to be sure that you understand just what pleading guilty may do to you besides a potential jail or prison term.  Domestic Violence convictions have serious federal firearms consequences.  If you are facing a domestic violence charge, you MUST understand what these consequences are, unless you want to risk a federal conviction and prison sentence.

Here is a synopsis of the problems any person facing domestic violence charges faces in regards to their ability to possess a firearm:

Domestic Violence & Collateral Consequences

Sometimes that “simple” misdemeanor is a pain!

*This also applies to felony charges.

The State Made a Good Offer

- The Client Wants to Plead

• In 1996, a Federal Law was enacted which prohibits those convicted of a domestic violence offense from possessing firearms.

• In 2009 in the case,of United States v. Hayes, a West Virginia man was convicted of a domestic violence offense in 1994, against his then-wife, but nowhere in the record was there an indication to a reference to his plea as an “act of domestic violence.”  Evidently there was not a specific crime of “domestic violence” at the time, so it was termed an ordinary assault charge.

The Supreme Court found the definition of misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, as it applies to the Federal Statute, to include two elements:

(1) the use or attempted use of physical force or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, and

(2) it must be committed by a person with a specified domestic relationship to the victim.

The Court held that the statute does not require the prior conviction to specifically apply to an offense of domestic violence, but rather

that the Government can prove such a domestic relationship existed in the previous offense in order to apply the Federal Law in the case at hand.

•The Supreme Court held that requiring a prior offense to be charged specifically as a domestic violence offense would “frustrate Congress’manifest purpose” in preventing the combination of firearms and the tendency of a person to commit domestic violence.

•Under present Federal Law, Domestic Violence is defined as any abusive relationship that results in emotional abuse, physical violence, sexual assault, stalking, assault, and/or threatened violence.

Specifically the Court Said:

• The definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” contained in §921(a)(33)(A), imposes two requirements.

• First, the crime must have, “as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon.” §921(a)(33)(A)(ii).

• Second, it must be “committed by” a person who has a specified domestic relationship with the victim.

• The definition does not, however, require the predicate-offense statute to include, as an element, the existence of that domestic relationship.

•  Instead, it suffices for the Government to charge and prove a prior conviction that was, in fact, for “an offense … committed by” the defendant against a spouse or other domestic victim.

In Colorado, Domestic Violence is Fast-tracked in many Districts.

•The impact of taking a “plea” in these cases -as a result of Federal Laws such as the Federal Gun Laws mentioned — is extensive and drastic.

DO NOT PLEAD UNLESS AND UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE PLEA TO YOUR ABILITY TO OWN FIREARMS!