Second Offense Domestic Violence Charge Significantly Reduced

In this case our client has been previously charged with domestic violence where he was represented by a different law firm who "plead him out" under the deferral statute. Due to the nature of the offense, Michigan's law makers created a deferral specifically applicable to domestic assault and battery, also called domestic violence. This deferral is explained in Michigan Complied Laws 769.4a. A person who pleads guilty under 769.4a is placed on probation and required to do certain things ordered by the court, such as take anger management classes. Then, if the offender successfully completes all the "services" ordered by the court while on probation, the case is dismissed, and the offender has no criminal record. However, the person always has a non-public law enforcement record of the offense, and the 769.4a can only be used once.

Since this was a second offense, the deferral was not applicable, and he faced up to one-year in jail along with a significant term of probation. Consequently, we had to find another way to favorably resolve the case. We obtained and reviewed all of the evidence from our client's prior conviction and when reviewing it with our client, determined that he actually did not commit any offense whatsoever.In his prior case he plead guilty because his attorney convinced him that it was the easiest way to resolve the changes.

Upon further investigation we learned that our client's prior conviction was part of a pattern. In fact, our client's wife of 2 years had previously made multiple similar claims against multiple other people. Armed with all of this information we went into negotiations with the prosecutor. During negotiations we submitted many of the details of the previous case and showed how they established a pattern along with the current case. As a result, the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the domestic violence charge in return to a plea of guilty to disturbing the peace, a much lower level crime. Our client served no jail time and in fact, wasn't even ordered to complete a term of probation. His only consequence was a small fine.