The Five Things You Need to Know About a Tennessee Order of Protection
5 things you should know if someone takes out an Order of Protection against you in Davidson County (Nashville, Tennessee)?
- Do not have any direct contact with the person that took out the order of protection against you. Do not call them, do not email them, do not text message, do not send flowers etc. Do not have any contact whatsoever. Any direct contact will lead to you being arrested and potentially convicted and jailed for a violation of an order of protection.
- Don’t have any indirect contact with them. Don’t call their mom to talk about it, don’t call their best friend, don’t get your friend to call the alleged victim to ask them to drop it, don’t post a facebook status update that they might read.
- Do defend yourself. You need an attorney to best defend yourself. Every day individuals justifiably seek and obtain orders of protection against their abusers. However, there are many people that unfortunately use orders of protections to gain an upper hand in a divorce, child custody matter, or just to have control over the other person that are not justified. Courts are often inclined to grant orders of protection due to the fear that if they deny the request and the victim is legitimately in danger in the future that the court will be blamed for failing to issue the order of protection. If you truly did not abuse the victim or threaten danger, you need an attorney that can help prove to the court that yours is the type of case where the victim is abusing the system and to show that you are not an abuser.
- Don’t trust anyone. Rest assured that if a person has already gone to court once to exaggerate or fabricate things about you that enabled them to get an order of protection against you that they are just as likely to call the police to fabricate a violation of an order of protection and that would put you in jail. You need to defend yourself now. If you do not defend yourself now, then the court will likely grant the order of protection and for the next year you would be subject to going to jail at the direction of the alleged victim for any alleged contact.
- Protect your right to bear arms. If the order of protection is granted you will lose your right to possess a firearm for the duration of the order of protection, which is one year but can be extended beyond that.
Should you have any questions about this article, or any other legal matters, please call Vince Wyatt at 615-256-6666.