My boyfriend is in jail and has been since 6/26/10. I do not want this order, a past roommate has been making trouble for us for a long time. I have tried for about 1 and a half years now to remove this order. He is now incarcerated for FELONY violation of no-contact order. Will hiring a private attorney help?? He has court on Friday, July 9, 2010. What is his maximum sentence?? He has a public defender, but I want to do something that gets him out ASAP and we can do domestic violence classes, pay fees, etc, whatever it takes. What will his jail sentence most likely be?? I'm scared, I miss him, and there is no violence in our relationship. Just a poor choice of roommates.
It's impossible to answer the question regarding the likely sentence without knowing more about your boyfriend's criminal background history, and more detail regarding the alleged incident and the reasons for the existence of the order in the first place. Sentences can vary from probation to years in prison, it's not something that is easily answered in the abstract.
Your boyfriend's lawyer should be able to analyze all of this and provide your boyfriend with a number of options that make sense in the context of the case. Your boyfriend has a Constitutional right to the lawyer of his choice so he is free to hire private counsel if he wishes.
The primary difference between a public defender and a private lawyer is that the latter has a greater *potential* to have more time and resources available to devote to the case. This doesn't always happen, you have to choose wisely, but the biggest issue facing public defenders is that they are vastly overworked and under resourced. This doesn't mean that every public defender is less available than every private lawyer, at the end of the day all lawyers have to learn how to budget limited resources. The odds are simply better that you'll get more time and resources if you choose wisely and can afford a private lawyer with a limited and well-managed caseload. But don't assume it's automatic. It's not.
Good luck.
Timothy Daniel SutherlandFamily Law AttorneyTacoma, WA ·
Because this question was submitted under domestic violence, I am assuming that this protective order prohibits your boyfriend from contacting you (not a protective order prohibiting your boyfriend from contacting this roommate). If that is the case, first it is important to understand whether the protective order is a civil or criminal order.
Criminal orders typically originate from an ongoing criminal case or a conviction with a no contact order imposed as one of the conditions of probation. A civil protective order is a no contact order sought by the petitioner (in this case you) against the respondent (your boyfriend). In a civil protective order situation, you could appear before the court and simply ask that the order be dismissed. However, your situation sounds more like a criminal protective order, in which case it is necessary to have additional facts before providing a more thorough answer.
The maximum sentence is contingent on various factors, such as whether he is currently on probation for another offense, the charge and the maximum statutory sentence that can be imposed for that offense, and whether he is being charged with additional counts or offenses.
There are domestic violence classes available, such as batterer intervention programs and alcohol treatment programs.
