The stipulation that gets many defendants in trouble is, of course, the one that says the defendant may have no contact with the accuser. While the intent of this is clear, it is incredibly problematic when there are children involved. It is even more challenging because the DA does not need to establish abuse, intended or otherwise. This no-contact provision often makes it difficult for the defendant to have a meaningful relationship with the children, especially young ones that an accuser can readily isolate from the accused. I am aware of many cases in which the accuser invited the accused to visit the children then have the accused arrested for contacting the accuser. I met a man arrested and jailed because he was riding in the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by the accuser. I will present some outrageous examples of this in later chapters.
It appears that judges like having an expansive “no contact” clause, so they do not have to decide what is abusive. When a final order is issued, they will often provide examples of things the defendant should refrain from doing, such as “Don’t be posting on Facebook that she’s a terrible mother,” “Don’t text her nasty messages,” or “Don’t break her car windows or scratch the paint or slash the tires.” However, they never mention that you can not say nice things, which I suppose someone could construe as bad. You cannot say or post anything, period. Thus, just because it is a protection from abuse order, you do not need to do anything deemed abusive to violate it. This broad clause makes judges’ lives easy and allows them to make simple rulings.
Also, note that a PFA does not prevent the accuser from contacting the accused, unlike in most states. Subsection (c) explicitly forbids this unless both parties file petitions and the court holds a hearing for each petition.
I agreed to abide by a PFA order because I thought there was little I could do or say to prevent it from being issued and wanted to put everything behind me. I did not realize these orders are a weapon to beat you whenever the accuser decides they are upset. Even if you have never done an abusive thing in your life, it doesn’t matter. You will spend three years wondering what you might be accused of and doing everything to make the accuser happy so they don’t call the police.