BY Jesse Black | December 3, 2021

Many people are unaware of the many ways that a domestic violence charge can affect custody rights. After you’ve posted bail and have returned back to your daily life, there is a good chance your children will be taken away from you and given to your spouse, depending on the severity of the case. This blog post will explain how the law views domestic abuse and how it affects custody rights in more detail.

What Is Domestic Violence?

The law distinguishes between domestic violence and other forms of assault because the former is often a pattern of behavior that usually involves some form of abuse. The best way to think about this distinction is by comparing it with how drug crimes are viewed in family court. For example, if individuals have been caught selling drugs once or twice, they will likely not lose their child to their spouse. However, when dealing with domestic disputes involving physical assaults, things are much different based on the severity of damages involved in each case.

How Does Child Custody Work?

Child custody refers to the responsibilities and rights between parents for taking care of their children. In California, either parent can have complete custody of the children, or the parents can share custody. A judge can rule to either give legal custody or physical custody of your child. To break it down:

• Legal custody: This can be joint or sole. Legal custody is where both parents share the responsibility and right to decide on the children’s welfare, education, health, travel, therapy needs, and more.
• Physical custody: This refers to where your children live. It can be split up, allowing both parents to be involved with equal control, split where one parent has the kids a majority of the time, or sole custody where one parent keeps the children the entire time.

The law is designed to protect children from being placed in a harmful or dangerous environment when it comes to child custody. In most cases, the court will award custody of the children to the parent who can provide a safe and stable home.

This usually means that the non-violent spouse will be awarded primary custody while the violent spouse is given visitation rights or no custody at all. As mentioned earlier, the violence can be either physical or emotional in nature and will likely affect child custody proceedings if there has been an arrest involved.

Child Custody And Domestic Violence

If you have been arrested for any form of domestic violence, the best thing you can do is to contact a family law attorney. They will be able to advise you on your rights and what to expect in court. You need to remember that the court views domestic violence very seriously and will not take kindly to anyone who has been convicted of it.

Remember, even if you are eventually acquitted of all charges, the fact that you were arrested will still work against you in child custody proceedings. The best way to protect your rights is by getting an experienced lawyer on your side as soon as possible.

The biggest issue you might face is having a petition filed by the other parent to take over custody of your child. This is done by the other spouse or partner on behalf of your child. If you are not able to prevent this, the petition will be filed with a declaration that states why they think you should not have custody rights anymore.

The court first looks at whether there has been any domestic violence in the past which could potentially put children at risk even if it did not involve them directly. The next thing for them to consider is whether there was an arrest involved and what happened after that point. Generally, unless both parents agree, then only one will get full physical custody, whereas both share legal custody responsibilities equally based on their schedules.

Visitation Impacts

If you are the parent who is not being awarded custody, then you will likely have visitation rights. The court looks at a few things when it comes to visitation:

• The relationship between the child and each parent
• The ability of each parent to care for the child
• The age and health of the child
• The distance between the parents’ homes
• Any history of domestic violence by either party
• The ties of the child to their home, school, and community
• What type of custody arrangement would be in the best interest of the child

The court will not likely award visitation if they feel that it would be in the child’s best interest to have no contact with the parent. This is generally only done in very extreme cases where there has been physical or emotional abuse of the child.

What Happens If I Lose Custody?

If you are not awarded custody of your child, then there is a good chance that you will lose physical custody rights. This means that the other parent who was given full or primary custody gets to decide where the children live and what activities they get involved in outside of school.

Some aspects may involve both parents equally, such as medical decisions, extracurricular activities like sports teams, after-school programs, etc. Still, most things would need to go through the custodial parent first before being approved by them.

Depending on the case, you’ll likely still be able to visit your child on a limited basis. However, the custodial parent will decide the terms and conditions of that visitation. If they do not want you spending any time with your child, then it is likely that a supervised visitation arrangement would need to be set up instead.

Suppose you are having difficulty agreeing on a custody arrangement. In that case, it is best to seek out the help of a family law attorney who can mediate between both parties and try to come up with an agreement that works for everyone involved. This is generally much better than leaving everything up to the court, who may not understand your situation as well as an experienced lawyer would.

Conclusion

When you’ve been charged with domestic violence charges, it’s important to remember that these charges will still work against you in child custody proceedings. By understanding how it can impact custody, you’ll be better prepared to face these charges.