How Does Domestic Violence Affect Children?

 Domestic violence cases are some of the most serious crimes that Las Vegas authorities have to deal with on a regular basis. Local police have a lot to deal with, between the various levels of familial disputes turned violent and the alarmingly high number of domestic violence-related homicide cases. There’s also the issue of unreported domestic violence incidents due to a number of factors involving the victims.

While most domestic abuse cases focus on the spouses who take the direct abuse, many experts both in the legal and medical professions have continuously raised concerns regarding the effect of domestic violence on the children who witness such acts. In the long run, the children get roped into the abuse, directly or indirectly, and greater focus has been made on the effects it has on them.

Physical Factors

In many domestic abuse cases, particularly those that have been going on for a long time, children eventually suffer direct abuse from the perpetrator whether or not they were involved in the initial abuse. In some cases it can be spontaneous, while in others it can be a general progression as the abuser aims to exert full control on their family. However, physical effects on children involved in an abusive family are not only limited to direct effects.

A study from the early 2000s discovered that young children who regularly witness domestic violence in the home report frequently experiencing stomach aches, headaches, bed-sores and bed-wetting. The more extreme cases even suffer from extended periods of fatigue, caused mostly by lack of sleep due to hearing or seeing domestic abuse. There are also instances where witnessing domestic violence can lead to extreme weight changes in the long run; it can either be a sudden drop in weight caused by anxiety-induced lack of appetite, or obesity caused by stress-eating.

Emotional Issues

Emotional issues are some of the more-cited factors related to children witnessing and/or experiencing domestic abuse at home. There is an abundance of literature regarding the adverse effects of domestic abuse on children in their formative years, with frequent mention of depression, social anxiety and extreme reluctance to establish and maintain a connection with their peers. Other children who experienced such situations gain temper issues, responding to many situations with anger and other extreme emotions, even for the smallest of incidents.

Psychological experts also cite incidents of role reversal regarding the child and the abused parent. In such situations, the domestic violent victim seeks refuge and counseling in their child, inadvertently turning them into an emotional anchor that helps them endure the abuse. Unfortunately, this can force the child to act way beyond their age, often taking on the jobs that their parent is required to do: housekeeping, taking care of younger siblings, budgeting and even earning a living.

Behavioral Changes

Children witnessing or experiencing domestic violence have a tendency to drastically change their behavior compared to how their peers would act. Younger children who only witness the violence grow up believing that the abuse is a normal part of growing up, and will copy such behavior when interacting with other children or even other adults. It is not unheard of for children to use rough language and physically attack others when they get into arguments.

Teen children may exhibit even more drastic behavioral shifts as the abuse progresses. In many incidents, these teens start skipping school, taking part in fights and other risky activities, experimenting with drugs and sex without proper precautions, and preferring to stay away from home for as often as they can. They sometimes consider running away entirely so that they no longer have to deal with domestic violence at home, though others cope by being secretive or defensive when their homes are discussed with friends or adults at school.

Domestic violence has a serious and adverse effect on children, whether or not they are directly affected by such acts. Continued support from all sectors of society can go a long way in keeping the children safe from the direct effects of such domestic violence.

Review: Defending Yourself Against a Stalking Charge in Las Vegas

 Stalking in Las Vegas is no small matter. It is a distressingly common case, fueled by the city’s sizable population and vibrant nightlife. Whether it is related to private individuals, marital issues, local business and staff, or famous personalities, stalking has the tendency to have severe negative effects on both the plaintiff and the defendant. In some cases it can even be worse on the defendant whether they are guilty or not; having the reputation of a stalker throws a shade on the person’s background and can adversely affect his life far into the future.

Facing a stalking charge in Las Vegas can be a harrowing experience for a first-time defendant. Fortunately, domestic violence attorneys handle stalking charges on the regular, and know some of the appropriate methods to avoid a conviction. Let’s review methods of defending yourself against a stalking charge in Las Vegas.

Part of The Job

Celebrity stalkers are fairly common fodder for entertainment gossip segments on television or online. People are familiar with the paparazzi horror stories: invasive photographers going as far as scaling high walls, using high-end telephoto lenses, or going on high-speed pursuits just to get a tabloid-worthy shot. Unfortunately, it can be easy to generalize these kinds of acts when they’re talked about so often. Many news photographers take quite the beating due to stalking and harassment claims, even if some of them are just earnestly doing their jobs. This plea is one of the more commonly-used defense claims in cases involving popular individuals, but take note: it only works if the defendant can prove that they were acting well within the limits of their legal employ. If the prosecution can prove that the defendant overstepped their boundaries, this defense can be turned against them.

Mistaken Identity

In a sea of faces, one can just be spotted in the wrong place at the wrong time and find themselves facing possible prison time and high fees. This is usually the case when someone is accused of stalking, especially in busy urban centers; a paranoid individual can just point you out in public and mistakenly call you out as a stalker. You can claim back that you were only mistaken for a stalker, and you being in the situation at the time can be considered pure coincidence. For example, you regularly take the same route as the plaintiff as part of your work routine. If they are legitimately being stalked, you can claim that you and the stalker just happen to be taking the same route as well.

This defense is equally usable in cyberstalking cases due to the uncertainty of identifying online personas. In addition, your profile may match the stalker’s persona by pure luck, which can falsely put you under hot water.

First Amendment Right

Someone can also be charged with stalking if the plaintiff believes they are being harassed verbally or in writing. Maybe it’s a series of comments made in person, or a few public criticisms on the plaintiff’s online profile. Whatever the case, an innocent post can be misconstrued as a malevolent attempt to harass a person and bring them down. A defendant can often claim that the comment was made with their right to free speech in mind. The First Amendment claim is often cited in stalking cases that involve messages or statements made in public, or towards a public individual with a prominent profile.

No Intention to Distress or Harass

Most cases of stalking come about because of miscommunication. A simple set of messages checking on a person’s health or what they’ve been doing for the day may be mistaken as intrusive and overly familiar, leading to charges of harassment and stalking. In such cases, the defendant must prove that their messages, statements, or acts had no intention of distressing or harassing the plaintiff, and that they were done in good faith. A variation would be a claim that no sensible individual would find the alleged acts or messages to be distressing or worthy of a stalking charge. The defendant can claim that the plaintiff was merely overreacting to entirely innocent acts, and any other person would not have found these acts intrusive.

Act of Spite

Sometimes there really isn’t any stalking or harassment involved. In such cases, the plaintiff may simply have disagreements with the defendant, or are seeking to deface the defendant’s reputation. In such cases, they would stage supposed incidents and frame them as acts of stalking on the defendant’s part.

In such situations, the defendant can claim that the charge was made against him or her as an act of spite on the part of the plaintiff. He or she can claim that the plaintiff is merely resentful of the defendant for certain reasons, and are using the stalking charge to ruin them. This defense works best if the plaintiff is a competitor, or someone who is against the defendant’s principles. It is also sometimes invoked in marital cases when one spouse accuses another.

These are just some of the commonly-invoked defenses against stalking charges in Las Vegas. Other defenses may apply for unique stalking conditions, and in many cases attempting to use any of the above claims may put you in an even more difficult legal situation. Always discuss your situation with your domestic violence lawyer in order to make informed decisions for your case.

What is Involved in a Restraining Order in Las Vegas

 People are aware of restraining orders because of how often they get brought up on the news. In many cases involving domestic violence in Las Vegas, plaintiffs would immediately request the presiding court for a restraining order to keep the defendant away and prevent any perceived threats of further harassment or worse. To the common audience, this is nothing more than one person requesting legal justification to keep another person as far away from them as possible. However, things look way different when you are the one facing a restraining order.

Dealing with a domestic violence charge in Las Vegas is already hard enough; being hit with a restraining order in Las Vegas is even worse. It can be even more confusing if you are in a domestic violence case for the first time. To help you understand the gravity of the situation, it is best to know what is involved in a restraining order in Las Vegas.

Contact Restricted

The first and primary purpose of a restraining order in Las Vegas is to restrict your contact with the plaintiff. Note that this not only includes physical contact like what they depict in television dramas; restraining orders also restrict you from trying to communicate with the plaintiff by phone, mail, or online. This can cover not just their personal contact information but their work and study contact channels as well. In addition, the plaintiff may be under the direct protection of a law enforcement officer for the duration that the order is in effect.

Separate Abodes

A restraining order has the legal and binding power to evict you from your current place of residence if you share it with the plaintiff. The worst thing about this is that you are the one that must vacate the property even if the property is in your name. Note that the restraining order may still require you to pay off some of the bills related to the property, including mortgage or rent, even if you are currently restricted from living in the area for the duration of time that the order is in effect.

Custody Dues

If you already have children, a restraining order has the power to legally transfer custody of all these children to the plaintiff, with all the contact restrictions applying to them as well. You can only be allowed visitation rights under arrangements prescribed by the court, provided that the plaintiff cannot prove that you can endanger your children during such visitations. In addition, you are still legally bound to provide child support for each child.

Additional Financial Obligations

Apart from the aforementioned payments you have to make for residential dues and child support, you may be required to provide for other financial obligations for the benefit of the plaintiff. These often include legal fees and damages sustained immediately prior or during the serving of the restraining order. Additional financial obligations include medical fees, moving fees, and loss-of-income compensation covering the period between when the temporary restraining order was issued and the time when the extended restraining order was approved.

Firearms Restrictions

Restraining orders have the legal authority to dispossess you of your firearms for the duration that they are in effect. You will be forced to hand over any of your owned firearms to local law enforcement, or sell them to a recognized firearms-related establishment, within the first 24 hours after you receive a copy of the official order. In addition, you will not be allowed to obtain new firearms for the period covered by the restraining order. Note that this does not apply to any firearms carried in relation to work, provided that you do not bring the guns home with you and your employer can certify that you are not a hazard while armed.

These are only five of the common penalties you can face as a consequence of a restraining order, on top of any other penalties you might get if you are convicted for domestic violence. Remember that you can fight back against a possible extended restraining order once you go into a hearing for it after the temporary restraining order period. Talk about this case closely with your domestic violence attorney to better understand how to avoid it.

Factors for Determining Your DUI Compensation Dues in Las Vegas

A DUI in Las Vegas that involves injury or death is one of the worst situations a defendant can be put in. On top of the possibility of jail time, license revocation, and fees owed to the state, the defendant will have to worry about paying compensation to the victim or their families. Some defendants and even DUI defense attorneys consider the DUI compensation in Las Vegas to be worse than most of the non-financial penalties a defendant will have to deal with due to how high it can get.

Nevada’s state laws regarding compensation for DUI-related accidents are some of the toughest legal measures in the country, not only because they exact a high price for such cases, but because they can be punitive in measure; that is, imposing a high monetary value for compensation is a means to discourage future instances of the crime. You would want to avoid this as much as possible because it has a high possibility of ruining your finances for the long term.

To have a better idea of how DUI compensation works, let’s take a look at some factors that courts use to determine how much DUI compensation a defendant must pay in Las Vegas.

Driver Negligence

In legal terms, negligence refers to a defendant’s failure to exercise due caution in circumstances that led to the DUI incident. The level of driver negligence depends on factors of their own, but in the case of a DUI charge the prosecution has to prove that the cause of the negligence was the alcoholic influence on the driver. Accidents due to reckless driving equate to lower compensation because the driver in question was fully functional during the accident, and was only involved in the incident due to other factors like distracted driving or mechanical issues.

Medical Care Fees

Medical fees form the bulk of compensation for DUI cases that involve other parties, with the accused expected to pay for the victims’ hospitalization and/or therapy fees. These payouts include anything from basic slings and bandages to complicated surgeries. Note that the court determines how long the defendant is expected to provide for the victims’ medical needs, including a set period after the initial hospitalization. In the event that the defendant runs out of funds after compensating for the medical fees, the defendant will not be liable to extend his or her compensation. He or she is only obligated to follow the calculated period set by the courts; anything else beyond that will be on the victim.

Work Restrictions

Severe injuries sustained from a DUI-induced accident can affect the victim’s ability to work. Generally this means that they will be bedridden or at least recuperating at home for an extended period. In worse situations, however, the incident may permanently affect a person’s ability to continue with their current profession; for example, a permanent arm injury can prevent the victim from being able to work as a construction worker at the same capacity that they did before the incident. This is called loss of earning capacity, where the victim loses their ability to continue with their current profession due to certain factors (in this case, the aforementioned injury). A victim is eligible to collect compensation due to loss of earning capacity, and it may not be limited to physical wounds in some circumstances (for example, the psychological trauma may have affected a person’s ability to drive again, a terrible loss for someone in the passenger or transport industry).

Dram Shop Laws

Dram shop laws refer to laws that hold establishments responsible for selling alcoholic substances to an individual involved in a crime immediately after the purchase (usually DUI). These special laws vary from state to state, depending on previous incidents involving such establishments. In the case of Nevada, dram shop laws have limited enforcement, meaning that any DUI-related cases involving intoxicating substances purchased from these shops do not indemnify them towards the victim, provided the defendant is above the 21-year-old legal threshhold.

Intentional Injuries

Some DUI cases may actually be premeditated; that is, the defendant may have planned to enact violence on the victim, and the intoxication was either only circumstantial or an insinuating factor to the incident. A victim is eligible to higher compensation if the prosecution can prove that the defendant had a clear and present intent to hurt the victim, regardless of the DUI.

Wrongful Death

DUI that involves fatalities require a higher compensation than one that only involves injuries. On top of paying for medical fees, the accused will also compensate the victims’ families for funeral expenses. In some situations it might also include paying for bringing the victim’s body home if they live out-of-state.

These are just some of the more common factors that determine how much compensation you must pay if you are convicted with a DUI in Las Vegas. There can be other items that fit specific circumstances and may cover many other items beyond the coverage of this article. Consult with your trusted DUI attorney in Las Vegas for more information.

https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/dui-victim-compensation-factors.html