Domestic Violence and Protective Orders: Safety Planning and the Legal System

Summary. This article explains what conduct qualifies, how the civil protective order system works from the emergency order through the full hearing, what an order can actually require, how federal law makes it portable and triggers firearms prohibitions, why an order is not self-enforcing, how criminal cases proceed when a victim does not want to testify, and what housing, employment, and immigration protections run alongside.

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-799-7233 (TTY 1-800-787-3224), and by text. Local domestic violence programs provide free advocates who can help obtain a protective order without a lawyer. This article is legal information, not a safety plan, and not a substitute for talking to an advocate.

A protective order is a piece of paper. Understanding both what that paper can do and what it cannot is the beginning of using the legal system well.

What it can do is considerable, and most people underestimate it: a civil protection order can remove a person from a shared home they own, award temporary custody, order support, direct the surrender of firearms, prohibit contact through third parties and social media, and — because of a federal statute — be enforced in every other state without being re-litigated there.

What it cannot do is stop someone by itself. It is an instrument that makes enforcement possible, that creates a record, that changes the criminal consequences of the next contact, and that in the great majority of cases is not violated at all. But the enforcement depends on people, and the Supreme Court has held that there is no constitutional entitlement to police enforcement of one. Both halves of that picture matter, and a person deciding what to do deserves to have both.

This article covers the law. Safety planning — the practical, individualized work of reducing risk — is the province of advocates, and it should happen alongside anything described here.

Part I: What counts as domestic violence

The relationship element. Statutes define who is covered, and the definitions vary more than people expect. The common categories: current and former spouses; people who have a child in common; current and former dating or intimate partners; people who live or have lived together; and relatives by blood or marriage. Some states extend to roommates or to anyone in a household; some exclude same-household non-intimate roommates; some have separate elder-abuse or vulnerable-adult statutes. The threshold question in every case is whether the relationship qualifies, and it is where petitions are most often dismissed.

The conduct element. Typically: causing or attempting to cause bodily injury; placing another in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury; sexual assault; stalking; harassment; unlawful restraint; destruction of property or harm to pets where done to intimidate; and, in a growing number of states, coercive control — a pattern of behavior that deprives a person of liberty, including isolation, monitoring, financial control, threats of deportation or of taking children, and control of daily activities.

Two conduct patterns deserve special mention because they are the strongest predictors of later lethality and are frequently under-reported:

Strangulation ("choking"). It is now a felony in nearly every state as a distinct offense, because it often leaves no visible mark, causes injuries that appear hours later, and is strongly associated with subsequent homicide. It must be described precisely — hands or ligature on the neck, breathing restricted, vision changes, loss of consciousness, voice changes, incontinence.
Threats involving firearms, including displaying one during an argument. Firearm access in a household with prior domestic violence dramatically raises risk, which is the reason for the statutes discussed in Part VI.

Technology-facilitated abuse is now routine and is covered by most statutes: GPS trackers on vehicles, stalkerware on phones, shared-account monitoring, smart-home devices used to intimidate, image-based abuse, and impersonation. Preserve it rather than deleting it — see Part VIII.

Part II: The civil protective order

Names differ by state — order of protection, restraining order, injunction against harassment, domestic abuse prevention order — and so do the details. The architecture is nearly universal.

Step one: the emergency or ex parte order. The petitioner appears, usually the same day, and completes a petition describing the incidents. If the judge finds the statutory standard met, a temporary order issues immediately, without notice to the respondent, and lasts until a hearing typically set within 7 to 21 days. Ex parte relief is constitutional here because it is brief, is followed promptly by a hearing, and addresses a risk of irreparable harm.

Some states also have an emergency order available after hours — issued by an on-call judge at a police officer's request, lasting a few days until court opens.

Step two: service. The respondent must be served. This is the step that delays more cases than any other, and law enforcement usually performs it at no cost. The order is generally not enforceable against the respondent until served, though the criminal law still applies to any new conduct.

Step three: the full hearing. Both parties appear. The petitioner testifies and presents evidence; the respondent may testify, present evidence, and cross-examine. The standard is typically a preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not — which is a far lower bar than a criminal case, and this is why a protective order can issue even where charges were declined.

Step four: the final order, commonly one to five years, renewable, and in a number of states permanent in specified circumstances.

Part III: What an order can require

A full protective order is more powerful than most people realize. Typical relief:

No contact — no calls, texts, emails, letters, social media contact, or messages through third parties. Good orders say "directly or indirectly, including through any third person or electronic means."
Stay away — a specified distance from the petitioner's home, workplace, school, children's school and daycare, and vehicle.
Exclusive possession of the residence, including where the respondent owns it or is the sole leaseholder.
Temporary custody and a parenting schedule, or suspension of visitation, or supervised visitation only.
Temporary child and spousal support, and continued payment of specified bills.
Firearms surrender — see Part VI.
Possession of a vehicle, a phone, or specified personal property, and a civil standby: an officer accompanying the petitioner to retrieve belongings.
Pets. A majority of states now expressly allow orders awarding possession of companion animals and prohibiting harm to them.
Counseling or a batterer intervention program.
Restitution for medical costs, property damage, lost wages, and relocation expenses.
Prohibition on locating the petitioner — no GPS, no tracking applications, no hiring anyone to find them.

Mutual orders — one order restraining both parties — are disfavored and prohibited or restricted in many states unless both parties filed, both were served, and the court makes findings as to each. They complicate enforcement badly and can strip federal firearms and full faith and credit protections.

Part IV: Portability — the federal full faith and credit provision

An order is worthless if it stops at the state line. It does not.

18 U.S.C. § 2265 requires every state, tribe, and territory to enforce a protection order issued elsewhere as if it were its own, provided the issuing court had jurisdiction and the respondent received reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard consistent with due process (with ex parte orders enforceable during their brief term, so long as notice and hearing are provided within the time required).

Three practical consequences:

Registration in the new state is not required as a condition of enforcement. Many states permit voluntary registration, and it can smooth things with local officers, but an unregistered valid order is still enforceable.
A tribal court order is entitled to the same treatment, and tribal courts have specific criminal jurisdiction over certain domestic violence offenses under VAWA's reauthorizations.
Mutual orders are treated differently — § 2265 limits enforcement of a cross-petition order against the original petitioner absent separate findings.

Federal crimes exist too. 18 U.S.C. § 2261 criminalizes traveling across state lines with intent to injure a spouse or intimate partner, and causing bodily injury; § 2262 criminalizes crossing state lines with intent to violate a protection order and then violating it. These are prosecuted by the United States, and a case that local authorities decline is occasionally taken federally.

Part V: The order is not self-enforcing

This is the hardest and most important thing in this article.

In Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), a woman with a restraining order repeatedly asked police to enforce it after her estranged husband took their three daughters. The police did not act. He killed the children.

The Supreme Court held that she had no property interest, protected by the Due Process Clause, in police enforcement of the order — even though the state statute used mandatory language ("shall arrest" or "shall seek a warrant"). The Court reasoned that a long tradition of police discretion means such directives are not truly mandatory, and that even a mandatory duty would not create the kind of individual entitlement that due process protects.

What this means in practice. A protective order changes the legal consequences of the next contact and creates a documented record; it does not guarantee that anyone will respond. Two things follow, and both matter.

First, an order should be one part of a plan, not the whole plan. Safety planning with an advocate — where to go, what to take, how to leave, who knows, what the workplace and the school are told — is the other part, and it is the part that most reduces risk.

Second, the enforcement record you build matters enormously. Report every violation, in writing, every time. Keep the case numbers. Photograph and preserve. A pattern of documented violations changes how the next report is treated, supports a contempt finding, and supports the renewal or extension of the order.

Part VI: Firearms

Federal law prohibits firearm possession by two categories relevant here, both under 18 U.S.C. § 922:

§ 922(g)(8) — a person subject to a qualifying domestic violence protective order. The order must have issued after notice and a hearing, must restrain the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child, and must either include a finding of a credible threat or expressly prohibit the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.
§ 922(g)(9) — a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

In United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), the Supreme Court upheld § 922(g)(8) against a Second Amendment challenge, holding that when an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. The Court grounded the holding in the historical tradition of surety and going-armed laws, and emphasized that the prohibition is temporary, tied to a judicial finding, and applies to a person found to threaten another.

Drafting matters. Because the federal prohibition attaches only to orders with the required findings and language, the order should expressly include a credible-threat finding or the prohibition-of-force language, and should state the firearms prohibition and any surrender requirement. An order that omits this may leave the federal prohibition inapplicable.

State law frequently goes further, requiring surrender to law enforcement or a licensed dealer within a stated period, requiring a proof-of-surrender filing, and providing for search warrants where surrender is not made. Many states also have extreme risk protection order statutes operating separately from domestic violence orders.

Part VII: The criminal case

A criminal domestic violence prosecution proceeds alongside, and independently of, any civil order. Two features distinguish it.

Arrest policies. Most states have mandatory or preferred arrest policies where an officer has probable cause to believe a domestic assault occurred, adopted to counteract a history of non-response. These policies produced an unintended consequence — dual arrests — and states responded with primary aggressor provisions directing officers to identify the principal aggressor by considering the history of violence, the relative severity of injuries, the likelihood of future injury, and whether one person acted in self-defense.

The case usually proceeds without the victim's cooperation. Prosecutors frequently pursue charges even where the complaining witness recants or declines to testify, and the evidence rules govern what can be used.

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) held that testimonial hearsay is inadmissible against a criminal defendant unless the declarant is unavailable and there was a prior opportunity for cross-examination. This reshaped these prosecutions, because a statement taken by an officer at the scene may be testimonial.
Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006) drew the line: statements made during an ongoing emergency to enable police to meet it are non-testimonial and admissible (a 911 call in progress), while statements made when the emergency has passed and the questioning is directed at establishing past events for prosecution are testimonial (a formal statement taken after the scene is secure).
Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353 (2008) addressed forfeiture by wrongdoing — the doctrine that a defendant who procures a witness's unavailability forfeits the confrontation objection — and held that it applies only where the defendant acted with the intent to prevent the witness from testifying, not merely where the defendant's wrongful act caused the unavailability.

Conditions of release in a criminal case typically include a no-contact order enforced by bail revocation, and it operates independently of any civil protective order. A person may be subject to both, with different terms.

Part VIII: Evidence

The cases that succeed are documented, and the documentation is usually created by the person who was harmed.

Preserve, do not delete: threatening texts and voicemails (export voicemails; carriers delete them), emails, social media messages and posts, call logs, photographs of injuries taken over several days as bruising develops, photographs of property damage, medical records including the intake narrative, and any recording lawfully made (check your state's consent rule before recording).

Keep a written log — date, time, what happened, who was present, what was said, and whether it was reported. A contemporaneous log is admissible in ways a later summary is not, and it is the single most persuasive document a self-represented petitioner brings to a hearing.

Technology-facilitated abuse. If a device may be monitored, use a different device to seek help — a friend's phone, a library computer, an advocate's phone. Do not remove stalkerware before it is documented, and consider having an advocate or a technology safety program assist, since removal can alert the abuser. Check vehicles for trackers, review shared accounts and family plans, change passwords from a safe device, and review smart-home device access.

Witnesses. Neighbors, coworkers, family, a school counselor, a treating provider. People who observed changes — the person who stopped coming to work, the friend who was cut off — are as useful as people who saw an incident.

Part IX: The protections that run alongside

Housing. VAWA protections apply to covered federally assisted housing: a person may not be denied housing or evicted because they are a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking; emergency transfers are available; and a lease bifurcation provision permits removing the perpetrator while the survivor keeps the tenancy. Most states also permit early lease termination with documentation, prohibit eviction based on being a victim, and require lock changes on request. See Residential Landlord-Tenant Law.

Employment. Many states provide job-protected leave to obtain an order, attend court, seek medical care, or relocate, and prohibit discrimination against employees who are victims. Unemployment benefits are available in most states to a person who leaves a job because of domestic violence.

Immigration. Three paths exist independent of an abusive spouse: a VAWA self-petition for a spouse, child, or parent of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident abuser, filed without the abuser's knowledge or participation; the U visa for victims of qualifying crimes who assist law enforcement, requiring a certification; and the T visa for trafficking victims. These matter because immigration status is one of the most common instruments of coercive control.

Address confidentiality programs exist in most states: the state provides a substitute address for public records, forwards mail, and shields the real address from voter rolls and other databases.

Crime victim compensation funds in every state reimburse medical and mental health care, lost wages, relocation, and funeral expenses, usually requiring a police report and a filing within a deadline.

Part X: If you are the respondent

Protective order proceedings are fast, the standard is low, and the consequences are serious — removal from your home, loss of contact with your children, a firearms prohibition, effects on employment and licensing, and a record that will surface in a custody case.

Do: appear at the hearing (failure to appear means the order enters); retain counsel if you can; comply with the ex parte order absolutely, including no contact through friends or relatives; surrender firearms if ordered, on time, with proof; gather your own evidence — messages, call logs, witnesses, location records; and present your account calmly and factually.

Do not: contact the petitioner for any reason, including to apologize, to discuss the children, or to ask them to drop it. Every such contact is a separate violation and is frequently the strongest evidence against you. Arrange child exchanges only through the mechanism the order specifies or through a third party the order permits.

False and retaliatory petitions occur. They are addressed the way any credibility contest is addressed: with documents, timelines, and witnesses. Consider carefully whether to cross-petition — mutual orders are disfavored, complicate enforcement, and can affect firearms rights and portability.

Part XI: The hearing, from the inside

Most contested protective order hearings last between twenty minutes and two hours. They are decided on the same things that decide any credibility case, and knowing that in advance changes what a petitioner brings.

What the judge is deciding: whether the relationship qualifies under the statute; whether the alleged conduct occurred; whether it meets the statutory definition; and what relief is necessary. Nothing else. Arguments about who was a better partner, who spent the money, or what happened four years ago in a different relationship are not what the hearing is for, and they cost credibility.

What actually persuades. In descending order:

Contemporaneous documents. A text sent that night. A photograph with a timestamp. A 911 call. An emergency room record with an intake narrative. These are believed because they were created before anyone was thinking about a hearing.
A specific, chronological account. "On 14 March at about 10:30 p.m., in the kitchen, he put both hands around my neck and pressed until I could not breathe. I could see spots. He let go after what felt like ten seconds. I could not speak normally for two days." That is testimony. "He's been abusive for years" is not.
Third-party witnesses who observed something — a neighbor who heard it, a coworker who saw the bruises, the friend who received the 2 a.m. call.
A pattern, described in order, with dates.

How to prepare. Write a one-page timeline with dates down the left and one sentence each. Make three copies of every exhibit — one for the judge, one for the other side, one for yourself. Number them. Bring your log. Bring your witnesses in person; affidavits are often not accepted. And know the three or four incidents you will rely on, because you will not have time for twenty.

What to expect that is hard. The respondent may be present in the room, sometimes a few feet away. You may be cross-examined by them personally if they are self-represented — although a growing number of states now prohibit direct cross-examination by a self-represented respondent in these cases and require questions to be routed through the judge. Ask about this in advance. Many courts also provide a separate waiting area, a support person, remote appearance, or a screen; these accommodations exist and are granted routinely when requested, but they are rarely offered without being asked for.

Bring an advocate. Domestic violence programs provide court advocates at no cost who will sit with you, help you organize exhibits, explain what is happening, and — in many jurisdictions — help draft the petition. They are not lawyers and cannot argue for you, and they are still the single most useful person in the building.

Part XII: Violations, contempt, and renewal

Report every violation, every time, in writing. A single unanswered text seems too small to report. It is not, and the reason is structural: the record of violations is what converts the next report from "he texted her" into "this is the eleventh documented violation of a court order," and that difference determines what police, prosecutors, and judges do.

Two enforcement tracks run in parallel. A violation is usually both a crime (contempt of the order, and often a separate misdemeanor or felony offense) and civil contempt of the issuing court. Either can be pursued; both can be. The criminal route is handled by police and the prosecutor; the civil route is a motion you file in the case that issued the order, and it can produce a finding, sanctions, incarceration, and fees.

What to preserve for each violation: the message itself with its full header or metadata, a screenshot showing the sender and the timestamp, the date and time of any drive-by or appearance, the names of anyone who saw it, and the police report number if you reported it. Keep a running list with case numbers.

Third-party contact counts. A message relayed through a mutual friend, a comment posted where the petitioner will see it, a relative sent to the house — these violate an order that prohibits indirect contact, and they are the most common form of violation. Preserve the intermediary's message too.

Renewal. Most orders may be extended before they expire, and the standard is generally lower than for the original order — many states require only a reasonable fear of future harm, without proof of a new act. Calendar the expiration date the day the order issues and file for renewal well before it, because an expired order cannot usually be revived and a new petition requires starting over.

Modification. Circumstances change — a shared child's schedule, a move, a need to permit contact for a limited purpose. Modify through the court rather than by informal agreement. An order the parties have been ignoring by mutual consent is enforceable anyway, and it puts the petitioner in the position of having invited contact they may later need to report.

Part XIII: Where the protective order meets the divorce and custody case

A protective order and a divorce are separate proceedings, often in different courtrooms, sometimes before different judges, and the interaction between them causes a great deal of avoidable damage.

Which comes first. A protective order can be obtained in days; a divorce takes months. Where safety is at issue, the order comes first, and it can supply what temporary orders in a divorce would otherwise take weeks to provide — exclusive possession of the home, temporary custody, support, and a stay-away provision. Tell each court about the other proceeding, because inconsistent orders create genuine problems and both courts want to know.

Custody. Domestic violence is an express best-interests factor in every state, and roughly half create a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody, or sometimes joint custody, to a parent found to have committed domestic violence. The presumption is rebuttable, and what rebuts it is usually completion of a batterer intervention program, a period of compliance, and evidence of changed conduct — not an assertion that the finding was wrong.

Exchanges are the pressure point. A no-contact order and a shared parenting schedule are in obvious tension, and the resolution has to be written into both orders: a supervised exchange center, exchange at a police station or another public place with cameras, exchange through a neutral third party, curbside exchange with no exit from the vehicle, or exchange at school so the parents never meet. Where visitation itself is unsafe, supervised visitation at a facility, with a written agreement about who supervises and what is reported, is the mechanism.

Mediation. Most states exempt domestic violence cases from mandatory mediation, or require screening and permit shuttle or remote formats. Do not agree to mediate in a room with someone you are afraid of, and say so — the exemption exists precisely because the process assumes a rough equality of bargaining power that is absent.

The overlap that harms petitioners most is the informal accommodation. A petitioner with a no-contact order who texts about a pediatrician appointment, agrees to meet for a handoff, or lets the respondent come to the house has not lost the order — but they have created a record that will be used against them at the next hearing, and they have made the next violation harder to report. If contact about the children is necessary, modify the order to permit it in a defined, written channel (a co-parenting application, email limited to the children, a third party), and use only that channel.

One more caution, for both sides. Petitions filed strategically during a custody dispute do occur, and courts know it — which cuts both ways. It means a genuine petitioner filed during a divorce may face skepticism, and the answer is the same as always: contemporaneous documents, specific dates, third-party witnesses, and a report made when the incident happened rather than when the custody hearing approached. And it means a respondent who believes a petition is retaliatory should meet it with evidence rather than indignation.

Part XIII-A: Who else the statutes cover

Domestic violence law is written around intimate partners, and several groups fall through the resulting gaps or are served by parallel statutes worth knowing about.

Older adults and vulnerable adults. Most states have a separate elder abuse or vulnerable adult protective order, with a broader relationship definition reaching caregivers, and covering financial exploitation as a form of abuse — which the ordinary domestic violence statute usually does not. Adult Protective Services is the reporting channel, and many professionals are mandatory reporters. See Elder Law and Long-Term Care.

People who are not in an intimate relationship. Where the relationship does not qualify — a neighbor, a coworker, a stranger, an acquaintance — the remedy is usually a civil harassment or anti-stalking injunction, available under a separate statute with different elements and, importantly, sometimes without the federal firearms consequence or the § 2265 portability. Ask which petition fits before filing; a domestic violence petition dismissed for a non-qualifying relationship wastes the emergency window.

Teenagers. Dating violence among minors is covered by most statutes, but the procedure differs: some states permit a minor to petition alone, others require a parent or guardian, and school-based protections (a Title IX process, a safety plan, a schedule change) run in parallel and are often faster than a court.

LGBTQ+ survivors. Statutes are facially neutral and cover same-sex intimate partners, but two practical barriers recur: the risk of being outed to family or an employer through a public court filing, and screening tools and shelter systems built around a gendered assumption. Ask about record sealing and about programs with specific experience; they exist in most metropolitan areas.

Men who are survivors. Roughly one in seven men experiences severe physical violence by an intimate partner, and they report at much lower rates. The statutes are neutral; the practical obstacles are the primary-aggressor determination at the scene and a shelter system with far fewer beds. Documentation matters even more here, for the same reason.

Immigrants without status. The most common instrument of control is a threat to report. The counter is that three immigration pathways do not require the abuser's participation or knowledge: the VAWA self-petition, the U visa, and the T visa. There are also long-standing enforcement policies limiting immigration action at courthouses and against people seeking protection, though these have varied across administrations. Consult an immigration attorney or an accredited representative before filing anything, because the sequence matters.

People with disabilities, who experience abuse at substantially higher rates and often depend on the abuser for care. Look for the state's vulnerable adult statute, the protection and advocacy organization in every state, and relief that addresses the care relationship itself — not merely a stay-away order that leaves the person without support.

Part XIV: Frequently asked questions

Do I need a lawyer to get a protective order? No. The process is designed to be used without one, and domestic violence advocates assist for free. Counsel helps at a contested hearing, particularly where custody or property is involved.

Does it cost anything? Federal law conditions certain funding on states not charging filing or service fees for domestic violence protection orders, and in practice these petitions are filed at no cost.

What if the police won't do anything? Report anyway, in writing, and get the report number. Ask for a supervisor. Contact the prosecutor's office directly. And understand that, under Castle Rock, there is no constitutional right to enforcement — which is why the documented record and the safety plan matter.

Will an order affect custody? Yes. Domestic violence is an express best-interests factor in every state, and several create a rebuttable presumption against custody to a perpetrator.

Can the order be dropped? The petitioner may ask the court to dismiss or modify it. The court is not required to agree, and in some states will inquire into whether the request is voluntary.

What if the abuser owns the house? A court may still award exclusive possession to the petitioner. Ownership does not decide who stays.

Does an order show up on a background check? A civil protective order is a court record and is generally searchable; a criminal conviction is different and more consequential. Ask about your state's rules.

Part XV: For anyone reading this for someone else

If a friend, relative, coworker, or client tells you about abuse, the most useful things you can do are simple.

Believe them, and say so. Disbelief is what most survivors expect and what most keeps them silent.

Do not tell them to leave. Separation is the period of highest risk, and they know their situation better than you do. Ask what would help.

Offer specific, concrete help — a place to keep copies of documents, a phone they can use, a ride, childcare for a court date, a room. Vague offers are hard to accept.

Help them preserve evidence on a device the abuser does not control.

Give them the hotline number — 1-800-799-7233 — and offer to sit with them while they call.

Do not confront the abuser. It escalates risk for the person you are trying to help.

Keep offering. People leave and return several times on average before leaving for good, and the friend who is still there on the fourth attempt is the one who matters.

Primary authority

18 U.S.C. § 2265 — full faith and credit for protection orders across states, tribes, and territories.
18 U.S.C. § 2261 — interstate domestic violence.
18 U.S.C. § 2262 — interstate violation of a protection order.
18 U.S.C. § 922 — firearms prohibitions, including § 922(g)(8) (qualifying protective orders) and § 922(g)(9) (misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence).
United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024) — § 922(g)(8) upheld; a person judicially found to pose a credible threat may be temporarily disarmed.
Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) — no due process property interest in police enforcement of a restraining order.
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) · Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006) — testimonial hearsay and the ongoing-emergency line.
Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353 (2008) — forfeiture by wrongdoing requires intent to prevent testimony.
The Violence Against Women Act and its reauthorizations, including housing protections for covered programs, tribal criminal jurisdiction provisions, and the VAWA self-petition, U visa, and T visa immigration pathways; state domestic violence, stalking, strangulation, and extreme risk protection order statutes.