What to do if my brother and sister were arrested Saturday for domestic battery against my other brother whom dropped the charges?
Question Details: It is Tuesday afternoon and they have not been to court. I have been asking state attorney every few hours what the deal is and they keep telling me they have not reviewed the case.
If your brother and sister were arrested for domestic violence, more than likely the case has been turned over from the police to the local district attorney to determine if any criminal charges will be filed and against whom. Due to constitutional restraints, if your brother or sister are charged, they will have to go before a judge or magistrate soon to be arraigned on the criminal charges. Typically in a Domestic Violence case, cases are dismissed if the charging party no longer wants to prosecute, but be mindful that this decision will ultimately reside with the prosecuting official to decide.
Depending on the type of battery involved, your brother and sister may not be able to quickly drop the charges against your other brother. In most of these cases, once police make an arrest, it is the police that decide whether to drop the charges - at least until the case gets to the prosecutors. This is especially true if your brother or sister was injured and police noted any type of physical injury.
If there is no sign of visible injury and your brother and sister write out a statement saying that your other brother did not hurt them then this information can be given to prosecutors who may choose to drop the case. This process can usually be sped up with the help of an experienced criminal defense lawyer like myself.
If hired, we can move quickly to try and get the charges against your brother dropped or at the very least to get him out of jail very quickly. Once out of jail, we could work on convincing the prosecutor to drop the case.
David West
Attorney at Law
