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In Re the Marriage of Maria C and Luis C

In Re the Marriage of Maria C and Luis C

Status:

Closed

Outcome:

Victory

Court:

Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District, California

Attorneys:

Richard Saenz, Senior Attorney, Criminal Justice and Police Misconduct Strategist

Ethan Rice, Senior Attorney and Fair Courts Project Attorney

 

The trial court issued a mutual restraining order against Appellant Maria C. without properly applying section 6305 of the California Family Code, which requires a trial court to make detailed factual findings that each party acted as a primary aggressor and not primarily in self-defense in order to issue mutual domestic violence restraining orders (“DVRO”).

Our brief addressed issues present in this appeal that impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (“LGBTQ”)  people including rates of IPV among LGBTQ people, barriers to accessing help from the legal system, biases toward LGBT people in the legal system, and collateral consequences of DVROs.

The Court of Appeal reversed the domestic violence restraining order against Maria C. and reversed and remanded the court’s custody order for the court to apply the presumption set forth in Family Code section 3044.

  • June 2018: Lambda Legal, ACLU of Southern California, ACLU of Northern California, and the LGBTQ Center Long Beach filed an amicus brief in support of Maria C. urging the Court of Appeal to reverse a lower court decision against her that issued mutual domestic violence restraining order against Maria C.

    September 2018: The Court of Appeal reversed the domestic violence restraining order against Maria C. and reversed and remanded the court's custody order for the court to apply the presumption set forth in Family Code section 3044.

  • Amicus Brief, ACLU of Northern California and Lambda Legal (10/10/2018)

  • Opinion (10/10/2018)