The No-Contact Order Can Trap You Before Trial
Charged with Domestic Violence? You need to know about the no-contact order.By the Law Office of Jeremy Loew, Colorado Springs Criminal Defense
The domestic violence arrest is the first shock. The mandatory protection order is the one that reshapes your daily life, and it lands the very next morning.
Every Domestic Violence defendant gets one, automatically.
Under Colorado law, the court must issue a mandatory protection order against any defendant charged with a domestic violence offense. It happens at your first appearance, as a condition of bond, before any judge has heard your side and before anyone has proven anything.
You do not get to argue against having one. An order will issue regardless. What it restricts is the live question, and that is where a defense attorney can act.
Schedule A Free Consultation.
“I couldn’t be more grateful for Jeremy Loew and how he handled my case. I was facing a reckless driving charge and a pretty serious speeding ticket, so after looking up some of the best lawyers in Colorado Springs, I decided to go with Jeremy.
He called me back within minutes, told me I had nothing to worry about, and explained everything I needed to know. This was my second ticket within a year, so I was pretty nervous, but Jeremy made sure everything was taken care of.
When I went to court, Jeremy was able to get me 0 points on my license and made sure I paid as little as possible. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. If I ever need a lawyer again, I’ll definitely be contacting Jeremy Loew. I highly recommend him!” – Lilly
What the no-contact order typically forbids.
A domestic violence protection order in Colorado routinely bars you from doing any of the following:
- Contacting the protected person in any way. No calls, texts, emails, DMs, letters, or messages passed through a friend or relative. Contact through a third party still counts as contact.
- Returning to a shared home. If you live with the protected person, the order can force you out of your own residence, sometimes with only a police escort to grab essentials.
- Going near protected locations. Their home is usually off-limits, along with their workplace and their kids’ school, often within a set distance.
- Possessing firearms or ammunition. Colorado law requires surrender of firearms while the order is active, and federal law adds its own prohibition.
- Using alcohol or drugs. DV protection orders commonly bar you from consuming alcohol or any controlled substance not prescribed to you.
- Harassing or threatening the protected person through any means, including through other people.
The order is written broadly on purpose. When in doubt about whether something violates it, assume it does.
The order is written broadly on purpose. When in doubt about whether something violates it, assume it does.
The trap: a violation is a separate crime
This is the part that ruins otherwise defensible cases.
Think about what that does to your position. You were arrested on a shaky mutual-argument allegation that might not survive scrutiny. Then you texted “can we please just talk about this?” to sort things out. Now the prosecutor has a clean, provable charge that does not depend on who did what during the argument. You handed it to them.
Prosecutors know this. A protection order violation is one of the easiest cases they carry, because the proof is often a screenshot. The contact happened or it did not.
Why people violate it without meaning to
Almost no one violates a protection order out of defiance. They violate it because the order collides with an ordinary life that does not pause for a court date.
- The protected person contacts you first, and you assume that makes a reply safe. It does not. The order binds you regardless of what the other person does.
- A relative relays a message on your behalf, which counts as contact through a third party.
Each of these feels reasonable in the moment. Each one is a new charge.
The order is mandatory, but its terms are not fixed. This is where having a lawyer early changes the outcome.
Jeremy Loew moves on this immediately, because the window between the first appearance and the client’s first mistake is short. As a former prosecutor, he knows exactly how the state uses a protection order violation to shore up a weak underlying case, and he works to close that opening before it opens.
What to do right now
If you are under a mandatory protection order in Colorado Springs:
The mandatory arrest law gets you into the system. The protection order is what the state uses to keep you there and to strengthen a case that might otherwise fall apart. The single most damaging move after a domestic violence arrest is to treat the order as a suggestion.
Call (719) 387-4111 for a free consultation. Serving Colorado Springs and El Paso County.
Serving Colorado Springs, Peyton, Rush, Security, Widefield, Manitou, Broadmoor, Black Forest, Northgate.