When someone is arrested for assault family member in Texas City or anywhere in Galveston County, they usually focus on the charge. What hits them first, though, isn't the charge. It's everything that comes with it: the protective order, the bond conditions and the restrictions that start before anyone has proven a thing.
You could have a protective order that kicks you out of your own home for 61 days on a misdemeanor, or 91 days on a felony that involves a deadly weapon. People ask me all the time, "I haven't even been found guilty yet. Can the judge do this?" The answer is yes. The courts have consistently held that protective orders are valid. You can be kicked out of your own home.
What is an emergency protective order?
An emergency protective order, often called a MOEP or Magistrate's Order of Emergency Protection, is a document signed by a magistrate or other judge that puts restrictions on someone charged with a family violence offense. Most of the time, that means a misdemeanor or felony assault family member charge.
MOEPs are authorized by Article 17.292 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The magistrate can issue one on their own, or at the request of the alleged victim, the alleged victim's guardian, a peace officer or the prosecutor. The alleged victim doesn't even have to be present when it's issued.
And there is almost never an opportunity for the person accused to challenge the order before it's imposed. It's signed at the magistrate hearing right after the arrest.
When a protective order is mandatory
In most cases, issuing a protective order is up to the judge. But the law says the magistrate "shall" issue one when the assault family member charge involves:
- serious bodily injury to the alleged victim, or
- the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon during the assault.
Serious bodily injury is the kind of injury that causes permanent disfigurement, protracted loss of the use of a body part, or death. A deadly weapon is a firearm or anything capable of causing serious bodily injury or death.
What a protective order can stop you from doing
A protective order can prohibit you from:
- committing family violence or an assault against the protected person
- communicating with the protected person or a family or household member in a threatening or harassing way
- communicating with them in any manner at all, except through your attorney, if the magistrate finds good cause
- going to or near their residence, place of employment or business
- possessing a firearm, unless you're a peace officer
The magistrate can also add GPS monitoring, and the order suspends any license to carry a handgun you hold. Two restrictions hit people hardest: the no-contact provision, and the requirement to leave your own home if you live with the person named as the alleged victim.
One more thing people don't expect: no one, including the person protected by the order, can give you permission to ignore it. Even if they invite you back home, the order is still in full force.
The order runs out. The bond conditions don't.
The protective order has a time limit. It stays in effect up to the 61st day on most cases, and up to the 91st day when a deadly weapon is involved.
Bond conditions are different. Judges can also add no-contact conditions to the bond, which bar you from speaking with the alleged victim in any manner whatsoever. Unlike a protective order, bond conditions last for the entire criminal case. So even after the protective order runs out at 61 or 91 days, you may have a bond condition that says if you violate it, you go back to jail.
A violation can mean a new criminal charge or revocation of your bond. When your bond is revoked, you go back to jail until you make a new bond, and the new bond is typically higher than the first one.
The order can be modified. After notice and a hearing, the court can change all or part of it if the order as written is unworkable and the change won't put anyone at greater risk.
The collateral consequences of the charge itself
Even a Class C assault family member case, which is punishable by a fine only, can be used to enhance a future family violence allegation to a felony with a punishment range of 2 to 10 years in prison. That's why I treat these cases seriously even when the maximum punishment is a fine.
It's actually worse than most people realize. Any conviction under Chapter 22 of the Texas Penal Code involving a family member, a household member such as a roommate, or someone you've dated can be used to enhance a new assault causing bodily injury charge to a third degree felony. That's true even if you never went to jail, and even if the case was dismissed after deferred adjudication. Only a true dismissal of an assault family member charge keeps it from being used to enhance a future case.
These cases can also keep you from owning firearms and keep you from being hired. When a judgment includes a family violence finding, Texas bans firearm possession for five years, a felony conviction means a lifetime ban, and there is a lifetime federal ban on firearm possession for anyone convicted of a family or domestic assault.
The bottom line
An assault family member arrest in Texas City starts affecting your life immediately: where you sleep, who you can talk to, whether you can keep a firearm. The protective order is temporary, the bond conditions last the whole case, and the way the case ends decides whether it follows you into the future. Knowing these rules from day one is how you avoid making the case worse while we work on it.
This post is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.