Charged With Failure To Protect: 3 Things You Should Do

If your child was injured, abused, or killed by your domestic partner or spouse, and you could face criminal charges for failure to protect the child. There are three things you must do to extricate yourself, if possible.

1. Understand the seriousness of the charges and resulting consequences so that you will have motivation to fight them.

In many states the laws the failure to protect laws are couched in terms such as "permitting" and "enabling" child abuse. They are crimes of omission which means you failed to do something the law says you are legally required to do. They are also somewhat controversial because they hold parents to a higher standard than other crimes of violence which require an element of participation.

These laws have been enacted likely due to pressure from the public, because in the  American culture most people believe you should do anything you can to protect your children, even if it means dying for them.

You might assume that if you show evidence that you were a victim of domestic violence too, that this would be a good defense. However, the prosecutor would likely turn that around and say that this should have made you take steps to take your children and leave sooner.

In many cases, the victimized parent ends up getting more punishment than the perpetrator. In one instance, a man named Robert Braxton, Jr., pled guilty to physically abusing and injuring the three month old daughter of Tondalo Hall.  Even though Braxton only received 2 years for his crime, Hall received 30 years for failing to protect her infant daughter from the abusive boyfriend.

2. Overcome jury prejudice and make a good defense.

If you are offered a plea agreement that includes minimal incarceration or probation, you might be wise to take it. However, if what you are being offered will result in many years of prison time, you might want to take your chances in court and pursue a vigorous defense. This will mean overcoming any prejudices the judge or jury would have about what you should have done, and convincing them that you felt there was no way out and why. This should be something more than a monetary reason.

Since being in a bad situation can actually be held against you, you may want to show evidence of certain mitigating factors that made it more understandable that you ended up and stayed in that situation. These might be:

• You were abused as a child and never learned how to be assertive or even aggressive when you needed to be. You didn't recognize how abnormal your partner/mate's behavior was.
• You have a personality or mood disorder such as dependent personality, depression, or bipolar disorder.
• You have some other physical or intellectual disability.
• You were raised with religious or cultural influences that skewed your judgment but you are beginning to understand how dangerous these were and are.
• You had no way of knowing or understanding how to get help to get out of the situation.
• You made multiple attempts to get help and/or get out of the situation but you received little or no necessary protection and support.

To overcome the self-sacrificing objection many people have, you may want to argue that you felt that if you allowed yourself to be severely injured or killed by the abuser, your children would have no one to stand between them and the abuser any longer. You would want the jury to have more than sympathy or empathy for you: you would want them to see how this could have happened to them if they were in your shoes.

You may also want to provide evidence that you are getting professional help to prevent such situations from occurring again.

3. Obtain experienced legal representation.

To defend yourself successfully, you will need the help of a criminal attorney that is experienced in domestic violence issues. They will help you to find experts to show the effects your victimization had upon you, and show how the system failed you and your child(ren).