Assault Family Violence Bond Condition Takeaways
- Bond conditions are separate and distinct from emergency protective orders.
- These court orders remain effective from jail release to the case’s final disposition.
- We frequently see no-contact bond conditions with assault family violence charges.
- Like EPOs, we can file a motion to modify bond conditions.
- Violating a court’s bond conditions can result in numerous sanctions, bond forfeiture, and with family violence offenses, violating bond conditions can trigger a new arrest and new criminal charges.
What Are Bond Conditions?
When an arrested person makes bail to secure their release from custody, magistrates will issue bond conditions to govern how the arrestee conducts themselves while out of jail. Bond conditions contain many similarities to emergency protective orders and defendants can file motions to modify bond conditions in the same manner as requesting to modify an EPO.
For most criminal offenses, judges will require that defendants commit no new offenses in the state of Texas or any other state in the United States, not use illegal or prohibited substances, attend all required court dates, and notify the clerk of the court of any changes in contact information.
In the context of assault family violence accusations, magistrates will set bond conditions regulating the contact the arrestee has with the victim/complainant. Sometimes the judge may allow contact between the parties so long as that contact does not become threatening or harassing. Other times, the judge will prohibit any contact whatsoever.
Can Bond Conditions and Emergency Protective Orders Differ?
Absolutely. We see EPOs that conflict with bond conditions all the time, and it is imperative that you understand all of your. conditions and comply with the most stringent of them. For example, when a person arrested for assault family violence leaves the jail, the judge will likely have issued an emergency protective order as well as bond conditions. The EPO will prohibit the arrestee from returning home, but the EPO will allow contact so long as it is neither threatening or harassing in nature. At the same time, the judge will issue bond conditions, one of which prohibits all forms of contact.
In the event you find yourself with these conflicting EPO and bond conditions, the safest thing to do is have no contact until the judge modifies the bond conditions. Once an assault family violence client hires our firm, most of the time the first thing we do is file a motion to modify both the emergency protective order and no-contact bond condition, assuming such a condition exists. At the modification hearing, we ask the judge to bring the conflicting conditions into alignment.
Once the conditions align, you can rest a bit easier. Be cautious, however, because many arrestees think they can return home and have contact that violate an EPO or bond condition so long as the victim/complainant invites them to do so. An invitation from the victim/complainant, however, will not protect you from criminal consequences if police catch you violating an EPO or bond condition.
What Happens If You Violate Assault Family Violence Bond Conditions?
With our clients facing assault family violence charges, the most common violations we see involve allegations of threatening or harassing contact when the bond conditions prohibit such contact. We typically see some variation of the following fact pattern:
- We convince the magistrate to modify the emergency protective order and no-contact bond condition so that our client may return home and have contact with the victim/complainant so long as that contact is not threatening or harassing in nature.
- Our client returns home and lives peacefully with the victim/complainant.
- During the months that follow, the stress of the pending criminal charge creates tension in the relationship.
- The building tension leads to an argument significant enough that someone, perhaps a third-party or neighbor, calls 911.
- Police arrive, interview witnesses, and submit evidence and reports to the District Attorney’s Office.
One of two things can happen when police allege that an arrestee out on bond for assault family violence violates a condition of bond:
- Police arrest the individual for violating Texas Penal Code Section 25.07 – Violation of Certain Court Orders or Conditions of Bond in a Family Violence… Case; or
- Police refer the matter to the District Attorney’s Office, and prosecutors request a bond violation hearing under Art. 17.40, Code of Criminal Procedure.
Texas Penal Code Section 25.07
The Texas legislature passed bail reform laws that became effective January 1, 2022. Significant among those reforms, the legislature required courts to implement a public safety report system (“PSR”). Texas lawmakers required the Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) to assist Texas courts in implementing the state-wide PSR system. Since the DPS acts as the major criminal record information clearing house in the state of Texas, bond conditions for assault family violence arrestees became part of the criminal record database to which all Texas peace officers have access.
Prior to 2022, Texas police officers could easily run someone’s identity through their database to see if any outstanding protective orders existed, but officers could not easily determine whether a person had any outstanding bond conditions. Once the PSR system got up and running, Texas police officers could easily see outstanding bond conditions, and we began to see more arrests under penal code section 25.07.
Violation of section 25.07 constitutes a Class A misdemeanor, except when the arrestee has a history of multiple family violence bond condition violations or the arrestee violates a family violence bond conditions by committing a new family violence assault. Violating any one of the family violence bond conditions can trigger an arrest under 25.07. And it is not a legal defense if the protected party had consented to contact in violation of a bond condition. Nor is it a defense if a magistrate modified an emergency protective order, allowing contact, but failed to modify a bond condition to allow contact.
Article 17.40, Code of Criminal Procedure
If police can arrest someone for violating an assault family violence bond condition, you might be asking why law enforcement would proceed with a bond violation hearing under 17.40. The reason is a legal term known as burden of proof.
Police merely need probable cause to make an arrest. Prosecutors, however, must be able to prove a criminal allegation beyond a reasonable doubt to win at trial. Proving that an arrestee had contact with a protected person, in violation of a no-contact bond condition, is easy when police find the two parties in the same place at the same time. Proving threatening or harassing contact beyond a reasonable doubt, on the other hand, poses a significant challenge for prosecutors.
As a result, when police assume threatening or harassing contact must have occurred after receiving a 911 call about a heated verbal argument, prosecutors will tend to present the matter to the presiding judge for a bond revocation hearing under Art. 17.40 because proving threatening or harassing contact beyond a reasonable doubt is hard. Proving an assault family violence bond condition violation at a 17.40 hearing is much easier.
Bond Revocation
Art. 17.40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that a judge shall revoke a defendant’s bond if the judge finds that a bond condition violation occurred by a preponderance of the evidence. Preponderance of the evidence merely requires prosecutors to barely tip the scales in their favor, where as proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest burden of proof in out court system.
With a 17.40 bond violation hearing, prosecutors only have to tilt the scales slightly in the direction of proving something like threatening or harassing contact occurred, and the law requires the judge to then revoke the defendant’s bond. The judge must then order the defendant taken into custody immediately. At that point, the judge may set a new bond with new conditions, or the judge may require that the defendant sit in jail until a subsequent hearing.
Charged with Assault Family Violence?
The Justin Barrett Wilson Law Firm specializes in defending those accused of assault family violence. We understand the nuances and dynamics at play in these cases and have years of experience securing justice for our clients. We also understand that emergency protective orders and harsh no-contact bond conditions create impossible situations for the families experiencing them. Contact us today to schedule your family violence consultation with one of our experienced domestic violence attorneys.
