Wisconsin Domestic Violence Legal Questions

If the car is with the person who has the restraining order against you, the answer to your question is no. You would need to hire an attorney and your attorney can contact the victim for purposes of arranging to get your car, or if they are unlawfully holding the car from you, having nothiing to do with the current disorderly conduct or DV charge against you, you have the option if the car is valued under $10,000, of filing a small claims lawsuit for the return of the vehicle or a large claims lawsuit if over $10,000 for the return of the vehicle. To avoid the victim claiming you are contactinng them in any way, use a lawyer to help you.... Read More

if you were properly served with a subpoena, you are compelled by law and must honor the subpoena by coming to court. You don’t indicate whether you are a witness, the petitioner or the respondent. A person can claim their 5th amendment rights and refuse to testify, if their testimony may result in self incrimination. ... Read More

The answer to your question is "both." Due to the restraining order, you cannot contact the victim. Per the signature bond, a third party would have to arrange your visitation, including where, when and how the children get transportated back and forth, from some neutral location. It would be best to hire an attorney and let the attorney do this for you, in my opinion. If an actual restratining order has been issued, those orders prohibit you or any third party in your behalf from contacting the victim, except your attorney.... Read More

If your hearing occurred before a family court commissioner, you have an automatic right under the statute to file a de novo appeal to the trial court assigned to the case. Since the statute, in it's current state, offers no time line for the appeal, the time line is governed by local court rules. You will need to check the local court rules in the county where the order was entered to determine how much time you have to appeal. If your hearing was held in front of the trial judge, than your only means to appeal is to the Court of Appeals. The time line for such appeal is 90 days from the time the written order is issued. The time line can be shortened to 45 days to appeal, if proper notice is provided shortening the time line. ... Read More

Once a person is criminally charged for domestic violence or abuse, it is out of your hands, whether you want this person prosecuted or not. You can be subpoenaed to testify in court as to what they did for you. Obviously, at some point, you felt differently, or wouldn't have called the police and they wouldn 't have gotten arrested if they didn't do something for you. You offer no facts as to what they did do to you. A factor weighing on the DA's mind, may be how aggravated the domestic abuse was against you, and whether the perpretator has a prior history of domestic violence against you or others. Assumingly, this person is either your spouse or maybe a boyfriend that you had. You can certainly convey your feelings to the DA that you don't want this person criminally charged and to work with them to offer some type of a reduced plea to resolve the case, but the DA is not just going to wave a magic wand and dismiss the charges for no reason. ... Read More

You will need to prove that the day care center was negligent and knew that there was a problem with the other child picking on or abusing your child. If you pursued the case in behalf of your child, most likely the insurance company will deny the claim and force you into a lawsuit. The lawyers would have to do extensive pre-trial discovery by taking deposition testimony of all the workers at the day care center and the manager to  see what they know. Unless your child suffered some type of catastrophic injury, it may not be worth all of the work that will be required to pursue the case. The statute of limitations for injury to a minor is 2 years past the age of majority in Wisconsin. Failure to file the lawsuit within that time frame would forever bar the claim.... Read More

in Wisconsin, lawyers can offer limited scope representation. If all you want is a letter written or contact made with the vicim, I am thinking, depending on the lawyer you select and area of the state you live in, probably $50 to $100. it is only a guess.  We very rarely will do limited scope representation cases. Good luck!... Read More

First off, the prohibitions apply to him, not to you; the no contact order appears to be one of the conditions imposed on him to avoid further prosecution; the order reads contact between you two can be allowed, if the probation officer in charge allows it; since this happened several years ago, it would be best to check directly with the probation officer in charge to see if these restrictions even still apply.... Read More

You should have simply walked away; the fact that you impermissibly touched her, even if you say she told you to, can be considered domestic violence. Since you may be facing criminal charges per your post, you are well advised not to be discussing the details of your case through social media or on these law web sites; instead, you are well advised to hire a criminal defense attorney to properly represent you and maybe depending on all the facts and any prior criminal charges, if any, against you, can help in trying to have your entire case dismissed. Don't go at this alone!... Read More

If your friend was served with a temporary restraining order, that order stands for 2 weeks. Both parties need to appear at the next court date and at that point, the court will take testimony from both parties and determine if there is enough evidence to warrant entering the temporary restraining order into a more permanent injunction, that can be issued under the statute for a period of up to 4 years. At this hearing, your friend can contest the allegations that she did anything violent against the other person. She will not be able to get it dismissed anytime before the date of the hearing on the injunction.        If your friend feels that this other person is a threat to her, and has engaged in prior acts of physical domestic violence against her either by threats or direct acts, she can apply for her own domestic abuse restraining order against this other person. The process works the same as outlined above. The initial temporary restraining order is issued for 2 weeks. After that, a court hearing is scheduled for both parties to appear to determine if an injunction should be granted for four years.... Read More