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Secrets of the Texas Criminal Justice System and Your Rights
Criminal consequences of roommate violence in Lubbock include two things: punishment and collateral consequences. Punishment is defined in the statutes as time in jail and a financial fine. In addition to those are collateral consequences, which are the additional civil state penalties. This can include probation, or classes mandated for the person to take (like anger management classes).
If any protective orders come about, the person will be in the role of protective orders with the Department of Public Safety. This will endanger a person’s ability to get a handgun and carry ammunition. All of those are consequences that a person can face.
Immediate criminal consequences include getting handcuffed, booked, and having a picture taken. A person convicted of a roommate violence penalty might end up in the newspaper as well, facing social damage. Other social repercussions include work, family, and friend complications that may arise after a domestic violence charge.
Long-term Consequences
The long-term consequences of roommate violence penalties include having a criminal charge on an individual’s record. If charged and convicted, a person facing roommate violence penalties is not eligible for non-disclosure. That means when a person has a criminal offense, there are two ways to hide that offense and to protect a person’s future for background checks or something else. One way to hide the criminal offense is through an expunction of public records, which a person can only get in limited circumstances. Those circumstances do not exist for someone who gets convicted of a roommate violence penalty in Lubbock.
A person penalized for a roommate violence charge should get an order of non-disclosure, which means the records will not be public or easily obtained. For an employment application, for example, the person is allowed by law to say they never did it. The government can still see it, but that employer will never find it unless that employer happens to be in a regulated industry such as the military or the medical field. So there still can be a list of people who can see the roommate violence penalty.
Another long-term consequence is called an enhancement. This is a situation in which a person with a prior conviction faces an increase in their penalty when they obtain another conviction. People often think they may never get involved with assault again, but it happens. A person likely did not plan to get involved in the one that they were convicted for the first time. Circumstances can get out of control sometimes, so someone can find themselves with an enhanced punishment. Those are some of the long-term consequences.
Building a Strong Defense for Roommate Violence
Getting a professional, experienced Lubbock domestic violence lawyer is important if you want to avoid both short-term and long-term consequences of a roommate violence penalty. Call one today to see what you can to do avoid such punishments.