Can I Ask The Judge And Have The Protective Order Dropped?

Judges are very reluctant to completely drop, vacate, or abandon a protective order especially based solely on the pleadings or request of the respondent or the defendant, the person who is the subject of the protective order. The reason why that is the judge has a legal standard that they are not to modify or vacate a protective order if it may place the protected person in more harm and if they don’t make any changes. Some things that judges may be willing to do is to make reasonable modifications to a protective order. We see this frequently when a defendant goes to jail after he has been living together with an alleged victim and after the arrest, the alleged victim moves out of the house, however, the judge has already issued a protective order where the defendant is not allowed to return to the house. This creates a situation where oftentimes the defendant is forced to sleep on the couch in his mother’s house and he can’t go back to his own house because the alleged victim was living there at the time f the arrest, however, the protected person or the alleged victim in the case, no longer is living at the protected address. These are the types of situations that the judges are usually easy to be convinced to modify the protective orders after consulting with a prosecutor and being able to verify that the situation has changed and the alleged victim has vacated the address on the protective order. However, that’s different than just completely abandoning or vacating or cancelling a protective order. It is very rare in Travis County that a judge will completely vacate or abandon a protective order. Even when the underlying criminal case gets dismissed, judges are still very reluctant to completely vacate the protective order. They are willing to, however, make reasonable modifications to allow parties to live and work in a situation that is reasonable.

For more information on Getting A Protective Order Dropped In Texas, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (512) 478-9898 today.