A Lot Of People Think That Anyone Can Get A PO For Any Reason, Which Isn’t True
Video Transcribed: Can you get a protective order if you don’t have a relationship with a person? My name is Ryan Cannonie, I am the Tahlequah family attorney for Wirth Law Office in Cherokee County and I want to talk a little bit about POs today, or protective orders, and how you go about getting one.
Now, a lot of people, when you start talking about protective orders, they think that anyone can get one for any reason. And that’s not true. That’s not how the law in Oklahoma works. And in fact, more recently, they’ve changed some definitions and made it even more difficult to get protective orders, even if you have a relationship.
For instance, if it’s not someone you dated or married to, or had kids with, then it’s going to have to be, if it’s another family member, it has to be related by blood or marriage and lived in the same household. And that doesn’t cover a lot of people that it used to. It used to, it just said blood or marriage, or lived in the same house, and/or lived in the same household. So it covered more people.
One way you can get a protective order if you don’t have a relationship, is if there’s a crime taking place, specifically the crime of stalking. Now, if you want to get a protective order and stalking is your basis and you don’t have a relationship with the person, then per the statute, you’re going to have to go make a police report of that stalking and then attach the police report to your petition for your request for a protective order.
A lot of people forget this. They don’t do it. They don’t want to make a report. And in the end, they end up not being able to get a protective order filed, even started, because the court clerk’s office won’t take it if you don’t have that police report to attach with your protective order.
So yes, it is possible to get a protective order without being someone you were in a relationship with or related by blood, if they are stalking you and you’ve made a police report of it, and have brought that police report to file with your protective order request.
Now, does this mean it’s going to automatically be granted, or you’re going to get an emergency, or anything like that? No, that’s still up to a judge who will review the situation.
And once you make that police report, law enforcement will then investigate and possibly send it up for charges to the district attorney. So it’s a much more in-depth process than if someone’s just harassing you, ex-boyfriend, ex-girlfriend harassment that you want a protective order to make them stop.
If you don’t have a relationship with that person, or you didn’t live with them, or have kids with them, then it becomes more of an issue of getting one. Not impossible. You just have to meet certain qualifications.
So if you are curious about protective orders, want a consultation, we do free consultations on them. You want to see what your situation would allow you to have that order from a court protecting you from further harassment and intimidation, or just living in fear, that you can come down, you can call us. We have a website, Tahlequahattorney.com. Feel free to go there.
There’s a little web form. You can put in your information, your situation, and we’ll call you back as soon as we can. And then we can offer that consultation to you. And if we can help, then maybe we can work out some agreement and maybe try to get you some protection, get you at least court order protection. So if you have this situation, get ahold of a Tahlequah criminal attorney and we’ll see what we can do to help. Thank you.
