Key Takeaways
Say nothing, stay away from your accuser, and hire a defense lawyer before your first court appearance. Colorado law generally requires an arrest when officers determine that probable cause exists to believe a domestic violence offense occurred. A protection order then follows automatically and can lock you out of your own home before a single fact gets tested.
Most people falsely accused of domestic violence in Colorado Springs have never been arrested before, and the case moves faster than they expect. Before you explain yourself to an officer, a relative, or your accuser, call our Colorado Springs criminal defense attorneys at Liberty Law Center at 719-578-1183.
One phone call can put you in handcuffs, in a jail cell, and under a court order within hours. Nothing in that sequence requires proof, only probable cause. Knowing why helps you avoid the errors that make everything worse.
Colorado has no standalone crime called domestic violence.
Under Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S.) § 18-6-800.3, domestic violence means an act or threatened act of violence against a person with whom the accused has or had an intimate relationship. The definition also reaches crimes against a person, property, or an animal when used as a method of coercion, control, intimidation, punishment, or revenge.
That designation attaches to an underlying charge such as third-degree assault, harassment, menacing, or criminal mischief. Third-degree assault is a class 1 misdemeanor under C.R.S. § 18-3-204. When the alleged conduct also meets Colorado's domestic violence definition, the domestic violence designation can add treatment and other consequences to the underlying charge.
C.R.S. 18-6-803.6 requires an officer with probable cause to arrest without undue delay. The same statute does not require officers to arrest both people when each one claims to be the injured party.
When two people make opposing complaints, the officer must evaluate each complaint separately. The law directs officers to weigh prior complaints, the relative severity of injuries, the likelihood of future injury, and whether one person acted in self-defense. Picture a struggle where you held someone back and got scratched doing it: Those factors are exactly what your defense will point to later.
Arresting agencies also carry a duty to make reasonable efforts to preserve evidence until the case ends, including dispatch recordings, on-scene audio and video, medical records, and witness statements.
The hours right after an accusation decide how much evidence still exists when your case reaches a courtroom.
Work through the following steps in order:
Each step costs you nothing and protects options you cannot recover later.
If you are calling from a jail phone or the morning after an arrest, timing matters more than anything else. Call Liberty Law Center at 719-578-1183 and let our team start preserving the evidence in your case.
Most people lose ground during the first two weeks because nobody explains the rules that switch on at their first appearance. These rules are not suggestions, and breaking one creates a second case on top of the first.
C.R.S. 18-1-1001 creates a mandatory protection order against anyone charged with a criminal offense in Colorado. It begins the moment you are advised of it and stays in force until the case reaches final disposition. The order restrains you from harassing, intimidating, retaliating against, or tampering with any witness or protected person.
Judges can add terms that order you to vacate the home, avoid all contact, and surrender firearms. Before release on bond, you must acknowledge the order in court and in writing. You can also request a hearing to modify those terms, which is how many parents regain contact with their children.
When the court finds that the case involves domestic violence and the threatened use, use, or attempted use of physical force, the firearm terms activate. You must relinquish firearms and ammunition within 24 hours, excluding weekends and legal holidays, after being served with the order.
Colorado allows a few ways to comply: Transfer to a federally licensed dealer, storage with a law enforcement agency, or a private transfer with a background check. A sworn affidavit listing every firearm is then due within seven business days, followed by a compliance hearing.
Failing to timely file the required affidavit or written statement can constitute a violation of the protection order and may lead to additional enforcement or criminal consequences.
C.R.S. 18-6-803.5 makes violation of a protection order a class 2 misdemeanor as a baseline. When the order came from a criminal case like yours, or when the parties were in an intimate relationship, that violation rises to a class 1 misdemeanor.
Any sentence for that violation runs consecutively to the sentence in the underlying case rather than alongside it. Colorado appellate courts have also held that a protected person cannot consent to contact, because the order belongs to the court.
Colorado generally does not allow a plea that removes the domestic violence designation unless the prosecutor makes the required good-faith representation on the record and the court makes the necessary finding under C.R.S. § 18-6-801.
Colorado law also generally requires a domestic violence evaluation and approved treatment after a qualifying conviction, subject to statutory exceptions, including for defendants sentenced to the Department of Corrections.
A new misdemeanor involving domestic violence can be treated as a class 5 felony when the defendant has three qualifying prior domestic violence convictions that were separately brought and tried and arose from separate criminal episodes.
Colorado lets many people seal dismissals and acquittals through the courts, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation processes those orders. Eligibility narrows sharply for convictions, and Colorado has repeatedly carved domestic violence convictions out of that relief.
That gap explains why a quick plea to end the stress often costs far more than fighting the designation. Background checks surface the result for employers, landlords, licensing boards, and military commands.
The most damaging errors usually feel reasonable at the time. A few surface in nearly every case we review:
Each item generates new evidence or new charges, and every one is avoidable.
Our defense starts with evidence that disappears fast. Doorbell footage overwrites, phone records age out, and witnesses lose details within weeks, so we move immediately.
Our work in these cases includes several concrete actions:
We will not promise you a result. What our attorneys can do is force the prosecution to prove every element while your side of the story reaches the judge.
Colorado treats false reporting to authorities as a class 2 misdemeanor, though the district attorney decides whether to file it.
When the order includes firearm terms, you have 24 hours after being served, excluding weekends and legal holidays. A sworn affidavit follows within seven business days.
Do not respond in any form, because the order restricts you rather than them. Save the message and forward it straight to your attorney.
Only when the prosecutor states on the record that an intimate relationship cannot be established. Otherwise, Colorado law blocks that plea outright.
You can ask the court for a hearing to modify the protection order terms. Never return without a written order, because entering anyway creates a new criminal charge.
If a protection order has already pushed you out of your home and started a 24-hour clock on your firearms, you are living with consequences that landed before any court weighed the facts. That speed is why early defense work carries so much weight.
Our team investigates the accusation, preserves the recordings and messages that support your account, and challenges the evidence the prosecution plans to use. Attorney William Beck and our defense attorneys handle domestic violence cases throughout El Paso County, including those built on one contested statement.
We offer a free case evaluation, and we will tell you plainly where your case stands. Call our office at 719-578-1183 or reach us through our contact page today.
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