Legal Question in Criminal Law in North Carolina

I currently have a restraining order my husband. He's subpoenaed me for a discovery. His lawyer asked me to provide any journals, diaries, personal conversations about the incident that led me to get a restraining order. I don't mind providing anything relative to my case, but I do not want to provide any information I've received from certain people about his past abuse to protect them because they are scared and reached out to me in confidence after my abuse. By law, do I have to provide this information and my private conversations even though it has nothing to do with my case?


Asked on 3/12/16, 6:48 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

In my opinion, restraining orders, more often than not: do more harm than good, are misused for harassment or other ulterior motive purposes and are basically a waste of time. Perhaps now you realize you likely should have thought twice about filing for that restraining order! In the game of chess, this is akin to the moment you take your finger off a piece and realize you just screwed up. You are required to provide the information requested in the subpoena unless there is a justifiable reason not to. You can contest but the things you listed are generally allowed so odds are the only way you are going to be able to avoid forking them over without risking being in contempt of court is to request the restraining order be dismissed. That may not be a bad idea because odds are you didn't really get the restraing order for protection anyway - if you did boy, do you have the complete wrong idea. Because I assume you are not a stupid person, instead you likely got the restraining order as a passive aggressive means of asserting yourself at best or as harassment at worse because everyone knows that a restraining order is not going to protect you in any meaningful way from a serious attempt to harm you. If he really wants to harm you - no mere piece of paper is gonna stop him. All a restraining order is likely going to do is drag out the 'moving on' process. At this point, you are likely either enraged (either due to being in denial or because someone called you out on the real reason the restraining order was filed) or crying or both. If so, that would just reinforce my point that from a logical stand point, since the restraining order is useless and everyone knows this, your real reason had to be some ulterior motive (typically an 'i'll show you' gesture or harassment). There are better methods of keeping him in check than the restraing order route. I suggest you consult an attorney and explore other options before you cause yourself more grief than necessary. Best of luck.

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Answered on 3/12/16, 9:58 am


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