Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

My partner and I had known each as family friends before we got together. She and her X had many fights and had a history of having the police visit their house. One of those visits my partner had been forced to take parenting classes because of it.

My X and I had no history at all of domestic violence. We lived a very peaceful life, just me and her and our son Thomas. When my X passed away my partner, being the godmother of Thomas, was a right pick for me, at least I thought at the time.

Her and my son Thomas didn�t have a good relationship; she was very impatient with him and so he and I agreed he would live with my parents.

She and I had two babies together. Just after the second one was born she began to be more and more hostile towards me and we fought a lot over finances and everything else.

One day we had a blowout fight and she was breaking everything she could get her hands on. She broke a glass on the kitchen countertop and cut her hand open. I offered to help her and she threw it at me. She then called the police and told them I had cut her hand.

She had controlled me so well; I had been giving her my entire paycheck since we got together, I had no money for a good lawyer. I relied on the public defender who did nothing to help me. Even though my partner wrote a recanting letter that she was the one who cut her own hand, they still threw the book at me.

Recently, my son moved back in with us. He and my partner got off to a good start but soon after she started to become impatient with him again. She would not do anything for him and always told me he was my responsibility.

On the day in question, my son and I were watching a football game. My partner came home and yelled to us and asked why the dryer was broken. I yelled back, �wait a minute, the game is almost over� She came upstairs and slammed the cabinets and yelled at me for not going down there immediately to help her out with the dryer.

I said sarcastically, you want my help and you won�t do anything to help my son? That is what made it even worse. She began to throw things and break things. Thomas got up and started to get in between us and began to yell at her. He started to take out all of his earlier frustrations on her. This was the wrong time for this.

She turned her aggressions on him and started to push him and yell at him. I took Thomas downstairs and out into the garage to calm him down and she followed us. She continued to yell and scream and throw things. He was becoming traumatized by the whole thing as he was shaking and crying as he she was yelling in his face.

I got in between them and grabbed her arms and pushed her back away from him asking her to go upstairs and cool off. She grabbed her arm, looked at me and picked up her phone and called the police. She ran out the front door and knocked on the neighbor�s door. She told them I had pushed her and dragged her by her hair.

I took my son back upstairs and was talking to him about my partner, how she actually truly loved him but just didn�t have the average patience most mothers do. I was trying to calm him down when the police arrived. They questioned me and him and we both told them what happened. They looked at each other and shook their heads saying �what should we do now?� they obviously didn�t know who to believe.

The officers went down stairs and shortly after called me back down. When I came down they asked me if I had a previous record and I said yes. They said �turn around and put your hands behind your back� They obviously arrested me because of my record rather than believing me and my son. The fact that I had a witness and she did not meant nothing compared to me having a record.

I am taking this to trial, I will not take it this time like I did the first time around when I did nothing but protect my son from my insane partner. I want the officers to know and understand they made a very big mistake arresting the wrong person. She was the one committing violence upon my son, pushing, yelling and throwing things at him. Yet simply because I had a record, she was the innocent one.

The Facts:

She has a history of domestic Violence even before I knew her. I did not.

She fits every single trait in the Control Freak handbook that constitutes a portrait of a domestically violent person.

She has a history of mistreatment towards my son which forced him to live with my parents in the first place.

Not only is she recanting again, I have heard she wants nothing to do with it and won�t even show up to court now.

I have a witness, my son, who will testify that he did not see me (drag her by the hair, or push her into a parked car which she claimed)

I held her away from my son in order to protect him from her and that is all that happened physically by me. I am innocent of this accusation.

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