Keep as Much Evidence as You Can

Video Transcribed: It’s a tough thing to face if you are a victim of domestic violence in any event, but being a male who is a victim of domestic violence at the hands of a female is even more difficult. My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m at Tulsa father’s rights attorney here with dads.law.

I want to talk about dealing with domestic violence as a man. It does happen. Women do perpetrate domestic violence against men. And unfortunately, whereas domestic violence by men against women is taken is generally taken very seriously, sometimes it’s overly aggressively prosecuted and dealt with in family court. But when you’re a guy who’s a victim, you’re facing a much more difficult uphill battle.

There’s a tendency to not take it seriously. The police are less likely to be your allies, and you have a much harder battle trying to get a protective order, trying to raise these issues used in domestic court. What you need to do is first of all if you are injured, preserve the evidence. If you are physically attacked, you do have a right under Oklahoma law to defend yourself with reasonable force and in a reasonable manner.

But as a practical matter, if you can get out of the situation without resorting to violence against her, you’re better off to get out of the situation without resorting to violence against her, because the risk you run is that she will, that she tells law enforcement that you were the one that was violent and you’ll get charged. And you’ll get arrested, and you’re going to go to jail. And then you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle trying to defend yourself.

Your better bet is if you can get away safely without resorting to defensive force, that’s probably your best bet to avoid ending up with a problem. It’s not fair. And Oklahoma law, if you’re talking about the strict letter of the law, as long as it’s reasonable, you have the right to defend yourself with force.

You have no duty to retreat. And when I say retreat, when I advise retreating, it’s more along the lines of being practical and trying to avoid a problem because you may get arrested even if you were in the right. You might win the argument in the end, but being stuck in a situation where you have to defend yourself in criminal court sucks, and you don’t want that to be you.

I would say if you are being attacked, get out of the situation. Keep as much evidence of any injuries you have as you can. Take photographs, anything like that. If she threatens you and you have a writing or recording, save it.

There are any witnesses, make sure they’re available for court because you’re going to have a harder battle than she would if the shoe was on the other foot. It’s not fair, but it’s the way it is. If you do need one, get a protective order.

Yes, you may have a harder battle to win that argument, but that shouldn’t be a reason not to go to court. Go to court. You deserve to be safe. And if you are the victim of domestic violence, you do need a good lawyer. And one place you can go to get a good lawyer is dads.law.