There is often a lot of confusion surrounding the topic of domestic assault. For example, many wonder what’s considered domestic assault, when can the police get involved, and what penalties does this charge carry.

Criminal defense lawyer Mike Kelly recently filmed a seven part video series breaking down the topic of domestic assault in Michigan. This includes topics such as what is domestic assault, what happens when you’re arrested, and what happens in court.

Below is the first part of this series which provides insight on what’s considered domestic assault in the State of Michigan.

Video Transcript

Natalie: Hi I’m here with Michael Kelly of Kelly & Kelly P.C. We’re meeting today because we’ve gotten several calls about domestic assaults and police involvement regarding it so we wanted to know a little more about it, for starters, what is domestic assault?

Mike Kelly: We have been getting a lot of these calls. The reason we get a lot of domestic related calls is because, quite frankly, family’s have problems, people have problems. The private problems that sometimes blend into the public sphere create legal problems.

Arguments at home between spouses are the most common types; this is domestic violence; you can’t hit your wife and the wife cannot hit her husband. When one of them calls the police, the common practice is that one of them is going to leave. This doesn’t just relate to husbands and wives, you can have problems between a father and son, mother and daughter, etc.

The law really focuses on “is there a domestic relationship” either in a dating nature or family nature. If so, it changes the level of those assaults. That’s going to be a problem for some people who are facing a situation where, for example, a fight between two siblings or high school brothers who are at least 18 years of age. In this situation, these siblings could face a domestic assault charge.

This is exactly what we are going to talk about. We are going to talk about the types of domestic assaults and what happens when these cases get to court.

Domestic Assault Q&A Video Series

The rest of attorney Mike Kelly’s Domestic Assault Q&A Video Series is available on our YouTube page below.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLve5i-80QAM_HMY3yhl3G0f03I_5AklG7