I have a criminal domestic violence case with my chilren's father and we both have a dependancy case through the state,children's and families, and chilrens home society because we keep hooking back up...in the criminal case there's a no contact order which I requested to be dropped until my case manager mentioned legal issues for me if I did not retract it, so I did. But in both request I made conflicting statements. Do I face legal charges for this? what can I do to make things right?

The biggest issue you face is that the state may take your children away from you and turn them over to the other parent or put them in foster care. Florida courts in particular understand that as an adult, you may want to return to an atmosphere that includes domestic violence, and while the court may not ultimately be able to stop you from doing so, CPS and the courts will NOT sit quietly by and allow children to continue to be exposed to relationship violence - this is what your case worker was referring to when they mentioned potential legal issues. If you've reported that your significant other has committed a violent crime against you, and the court feels from your behavior (wanting to drop the protective order) that you will continue to choose to be around this person, the court can then deem that such behavior constitutes "failure to protect". When children and domestic violence co-exist, you may end up having to choose between keeping your relationship, or keeping your children. The more you fight for the former, the greater chance that you'll loose the latter.

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While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

The person who responded to you saying you could lose your children because of violence between the parents does not understand family court law in Florida. Under the OLD LAW everything they said was true, under the new law you are constitutionally protected to have 50 percent time share with your children unless you've been convicted of child abuse or neglect! (or if you have a FELONY on your record in the last 5 years).

Here's a link to the REWRITE

http://childrens-justice.org/papers/...write-2003.htm

Here's a link to an article I wrote on the subject:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68353803/A...-ABOVE-the-Law