Being served with an Emergency Protection Order (EPO) for your domestic violence case might surely make you lose your temper (especially when you are wrongfully convicted of the offense), but something that your should remember at such times is that an EPO is a valid court order, violating which might result in further penalties. So, anger, which is one letter short of danger (quite literally) isn’t a favourable response in such a situation.
An EPO (which is often referred by different terms, like, restraining orders, protection orders, no contact orders, mandatory restraining orders, etc.) is basically a court order which is served upon the arrestee and mandates that the arrested person stays away from the protected person (which might include his wife, family, home, children, personal belongings, etc.) for several days at a stretch.
This order is issued in order to allow the protected person to stay away from the violence and give them some time so that they can handle the situation without any fear. It is a short term order, normally valid for 5 to 10 days.
Violation of an EPO could be punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $1000 fine. Moreover, it could also affect your bail or the ultimate resolution of your case. If you violate this order while you are out on bail and the court finds this out, you will most likely be taken back into custody and your bail could be drastically increased or even denied.
If you are issued this order, then make sure you comply with its terms and do not go against any of its terms or rules at any cost or under any circumstance, whatsoever.
Make sure you stay away from the protected person and do not make any contact with them (which includes face-to-face contact, telephonic contact, electronic contact, or even through a third person). If it is absolutely necessary to make contact with them, then you should do so only through your domestic violence defense attorney or your attorney’s representative.
This order could take one of these two forms:
i) It could either be a “full stay away order”, which would require the convict to not make any contact with the protected person.
ii) Or, it could be a “do not harass/annoy/molest order”, which would allow the convict to have peaceful contact with the protected person, but he is still subject to the order. He cannot do anything to upset or annoy the protected person or he might get arrested and filed with new criminal charges.
This order (which is generally considered a short term temporary order) likely remains in place during the pendency of a case. In some cases, it could even extend to several months until the case resolves.