If you are facing both an order of protection and a domestic assault charge in Davidson County, it can feel like you are fighting the same battle twice. You are fighting two separate legal battles that happen to be running on parallel tracks. This makes having a strong criminal defense strategy even more important.
An order of protection is a civil matter, filed by the alleged victim, and it is designed to prevent future contact rather than punish past conduct. A domestic assault charge is a criminal matter, brought by the state, and it is meant to hold someone accountable for conduct that is already alleged to have occurred. These proceed independently of each other. You can face a criminal charge without an order of protection ever being filed, and someone can obtain an order of protection without any criminal charges following at all.
There is no fixed sequence. An order of protection petition is often filed within hours or days of an alleged incident, sometimes before police have even completed an investigation into potential criminal charges. In other situations, criminal charges are filed first, and a protective order petition follows once the alleged victim learns about that process or decides to pursue additional protection.
It is also common for both to be set in motion around the same time, particularly when police respond to a domestic incident and refer the alleged victim to the civil protective order process while separately forwarding the case for criminal charges.
Under Tennessee law, a court can issue an ex parte order of protection immediately, without you present, if the petition shows an immediate and present danger. That order takes effect right away and remains in place until a hearing, which state law requires be to held within fifteen days of you being served. At that hearing, both sides can present evidence, and the court decides whether to extend the order, for up to a year, based on a preponderance of the evidence standard, a considerably lower bar than what is required in a criminal case.
A domestic assault charge under Tennessee law follows the standard criminal process, from arraignment through potential trial, and it requires the state to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Bond conditions in the criminal case will often include a no-contact requirement that functions similarly to a protective order, even if no separate civil petition has been filed. This means you may already be operating under contact restrictions well before any civil hearing takes place.
Because these cases move on separate tracks with different standards of proof, what you say or do in one can affect the other. Statements made at a protective order hearing, where the stakes may feel lower and the process is civil, can be used against you in the criminal case, where the consequences are far more serious. Treating either proceeding as the less important one is a mistake.
Because these two matters are connected in fact, even when separate in law, they need to be defended together, not in isolation. May McKinney, PLLC represents clients throughout Davidson County who are facing both a protective order petition and a related criminal charge, building a defense strategy that accounts for how each case affects the other.
Our Nashville criminal defense attorneys can protect your rights in both proceedings. Call (615) 256-7337 or contact us online for a free consultation.
