A couple has a verbal argument. The husband has had some drinks. It gets quite heated. Somebody throws a plate. Somebody pushes the other. The daughter sees the fight, gets nervous and calls 911. She says “I’m scared…mom and dad are fighting”. Mom hangs up the phone, but the police arrive in 2 minutes.

Mom thinks they will take the husband to his brother’s house to cool off, and tell him he should be sober and respectful in his home. However, unlike what may happen back home, they are there to arrest someone. They are there to charge someone with a crime. That person is usually the husband, and he is going to the police station and he is not coming home until the case is over.

There is usually not much of an investigation. In my experience in dealing with hundreds of these kinds of cases, They often don’t even ask the husband for his side of the story…they automatically assume that the man is the criminal.

The person charged is taken to the police station, without a chance to pick up his personal items. He is held in the police station and then taken to a courthouse. The person will be released from custody if a friend or family member can post bail. Usually the court will demand that the accused live with the friend who posts bail, and that they not communicate with his wife or even go the home.

Until the case is over. Usually 3 to 9 months. This can cause a lot of problems for the family, especially if the husband needs to pay the bills, and help take care of the kids or older parents.

This is a common reaction. The wife feels that things have spun out of control, or that the reaction of the court system is too strong. I tell my clients that the wife didn’t lay the charges, the police did. The wife isn’t the victim, but in our system of law, the victim is Her Majesty the Queen. Only the prosecutor can drop the charge. However, the feelings of the victim can sometimes be taken into account. The wife can get her own lawyer is she feels her voice is being ignored in this process.

At the low end of the range, a judge may sentence someone to a kind of sentence called a discharge. This is a sentence which does not cause a permanent criminal record, but does have an impact on crossing borders and getting certain kinds of jobs. Typically a person who receives a discharge will have to complete counseling for partner abuse and anger management. A more serious consequence involves a permanent criminal record, and for cases involving serious injuries or repeated assaults, jail is often imposed. The more serious the sentence, the more likely it will have a negative impact on immigration status as well.