If you’ve been arrested for child endangerment, or if Child Protective Services has shown up at your door, you probably have more questions than answers. What does this charge really mean? How serious is it? Are you going to jail? Will you lose custody of your kids? Will this affect your job or your professional…
In recent months, there have been at least two child abuse cases in California (one locally in Riverside County), which have received extensive national attention. In both cases, there were multiple children who were reportedly abused for years. The first case took place in Perris and came to light in January after one of the…
In this age of helicopter-parenting, the term “child endangerment” is bandied about all the time. The media is full of stories of parents who have to battle child protective services and law enforcement because they allow their children to walk home from the park alone or tell their five-year-old there is no school on Saturday…
Scenario Suppose that the parents of a twelve-year old girl spanked her on her backside with a wooden spoon, and that the spanking was done with enough force to produce visible bruises. Question Does the parent’s use of a wooden spoon to spank the girl rise to the level of criminal “child abuse” as defined…
If you are arrested for DUI and have a passenger under the age of 14 in your car with you offense, you may wind up facing a charge of child endangerment. One example that came up in the news recently, involved a woman who was involved in a police chase after the police attempted to…
It may seem counterintuitive to suppose that teenage boys, filled with raging hormones as they are, could ever be coerced into having sex. But the Daily Beast, quoting an academic study, reports that 43 percent of high school boys and young college men report having been coerced into having sex, 95 percent with females. Except…
In the state of California being found guilty of false imprisonment can lead to serious consequences including possible jail time. California Penal Code Section 236, describes false imprisonment as the act of restraining or confining a person without their consent. It does not specify any particular length of time or any location where the confinement…
Across the country, all states struggle with how to handle both prisoners and released inmates. While we all generally believe that people who committed crimes ought to atone for them, the reality is that people cannot and should not be locked up forever. That would be neither fair nor financially practical. This is an issue…
The crime of kidnapping of any type for any reason is a very serious offense and is punishable on different levels, by varying degrees in different states. Most of us are now familiar with the case of Ariel Castro who kidnapped 3 young women in Cleveland, Ohio and held them captive under torturous conditions for…
Recently in the news, a New York man locked four young boys aged 8 to 10 years in a closet after he caught them vandalizing a home he was renovating. In Virginia, a grandfather was stopped by a cop for speeding at 95 mph on a highway. He was arrested after it was found he…
I’m sometimes asked by husbands who were arrested for domestic violence — California Penal Code section 273.5 or 243(e)(1) — whether they can prevent their wives from testifying in court by invoking their marital privilege. California law recognizes two marital privileges. First, a spouse may refuse to testify against the other spouse. This privilege is…
Suppose that you’re charged with assault, battery, domestic violence or assault with a deadly weapon. Self-defense may be used by an experienced attorney as an absolute defense to the crime with which you’re being charged. Simply stated, self-defense means that it is lawful to defend yourself from attack if: (1) as a reasonable person, you…
If you or a loved one is facing criminal charges in Southwest Riverside County, time is critical. Contact the Law Office of Nic Cocis today for a free, no-obligation case evaluation.
