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When relationships go bad: Legal intervention

Temporary restraining orders offer space and protection
David Holub/Durango Herald illustration

Day after day, dispatchers on the emergency-services scanner tell patrol officers that someone pulled over on a traffic violation is either the restrained or protected party under a protection order.

Which led to some questions: What kinds of situations require a protection order? How many people in La Plata County are involved in one of those situations? Are they effective in a small community? And how often are they violated?

Q: Why do people get protection orders?

A: “We get a variety of situations,” said Lindsay Patterson, the self-represented litigant coordinator for La Plata County Combined Courts. “There are a large amount which we call domestic, women against husbands or boyfriends, husbands against wives or people against mothers or brothers. But we also get our share against neighbors or other acquaintances.”

Contentious divorces are a major reason for protection orders.

“If a client says she’s fearful for her safety, we’ll let her know it’s an option that’s available to her,” said Nicole Vette, an associate attorney in the law office of Deborah Anderson, who practices family law. “I don’t have any kind of statistic, but while I wouldn’t say it’s standard, I wouldn’t say it’s infrequent, either.”

Q: How does a person get a protection order?

A: The majority of temporary restraining orders are issued without the help of an attorney, Patterson said. The person requesting the order generally appears in front of a judge the same day the request is filed, and not everyone who requests a restraining order is granted one.

“It kind of depends on the claim,” she said. “The judge makes the decision if the person is in immediate emotional or physical danger.”

Q: How long is a temporary restraining order in effect?

A: In general, the order is in effect until the next court date, which allows time for the restrained party to be served with notice of the temporary restraining order and for both parties to prepare for the hearing, Patterson said.

“Usually, the temporary order expires at the next court date,” she said, “but if the next court date is continued, the judge will usually continue the order. Sometimes, she will put a date on the temporary protection order and tell people, ‘Let’s see how you’re doing after that.’”

Q. How many restraining orders are currently in effect?

A: In 2014, 626 restraining orders were issued in La Plata County, according to the Colorado Judicial Department. With a population of just more than 51,000, including children, that means 0.02 percent of the residents in the county obtained an order that year.

None of the raw numbers indicates if any single individual was party to more than one restraining order, nor if multiple restraining orders were issued in a single case, said Andrea Chavez, a court-programs analyst for the department.

Of the 626 issued, only one was a permanent restraining order. The remainder were temporary orders, she said.

Q: With so few issued in La Plata County, why are so many mentioned on the scanner?

A: The scanner is not a fair sampling of the general population, said Lt. Ray Shupe with the Durango Police Department.

“It’s just part of what law enforcement does,” he said, “look for any other violations when a patrol officer pulls someone over. We ask for any wants or warrants, and restraining orders come up when we run them.”

Domestic-violence laws and other statutes require the officer to ensure that any passengers in the car are not a party in a restraining order with the driver, he said.

“Also, we’re checking records all over the country,” Shupe said, “and when we get those coming back on people with a restraining order, it doesn’t mean it was issued in La Plata County.”

Q: Do restraining orders work? How often are they broken?

A: In 2014, Chavez found 162 criminal charges under the statute that covers the crime of violation of a protection order, which means about 26 percent of the time, someone violated the order seriously enough to warrant an arrest and charges.

Sgt. Geary Parsons with the DPD said that number might be misleadingly low because there are often violations of a serious nature such as assault, which may lead to different charges. An open-records request to determine how many times that happened would cost several hundred dollars, he said.

“It’s a pretty good remedy for law-abiding citizens,” Vette said. “If you violate a protection order, you’re going to be arrested. I guess if you’re not a law-abiding citizen, then no, it’s not much of a deterrent. But if you don’t want to end up in jail, you’re going to abide by it.”

abutler@durangoherald.com



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