GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
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If you were arrested for a family violence offense in Connecticut, you will be in court the next business day. That is faster than most people expect, and what happens at that first appearance shapes everything after it.
The firm’s criminal practice is limited to charges arising from a domestic or family violence incident. We do not handle unrelated DUI, drug, theft, or other criminal matters.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
CT Safe Connect: (888) 774-2900 — 24/7, by call, text, chat, or email
Not to apologize, not to explain, not through a friend, not through your children. If the court enters a protective order at arraignment, contact becomes a separate criminal charge — and people are charged with violating orders far more often than they expect, usually over something they thought was harmless.
Family violence arrests are arraigned on the next court day. Missing it makes everything worse.
Before arraignment, the court’s Family Violence Intervention Unit will interview you and the other person and give the judge a report. What you say there matters.
The court can enter one at arraignment restricting contact, or barring you from your own home, before anything has been proven.
The urge to explain is overwhelming and it is almost always the wrong instinct.
Connecticut treats family violence cases on a separate track from the first day.
Police in Connecticut must make an arrest where they have probable cause to believe a family violence crime occurred, which means an arrest can follow a call even if no one wanted charges filed and even if the complaining person now wants it stopped. The decision is not the other person’s to make, and the case does not disappear because they ask for it to.
Before you see a judge, the Family Violence Intervention Unit interviews both people and prepares a report with a recommendation. At the arraignment itself the court decides on release conditions and whether to enter a criminal protective order.
Two different orders get called the same thing, and the difference matters.
A criminal protective order issues while the case is pending, under C.G.S. §46b-38c(e), as a condition of your release. It can bar contact with the protected person, bar threats or harassment, and bar you from entering their residence — including a home you pay for. It lasts while the case does.
A standing criminal protective order is different. It comes after a conviction, or a finding of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, under C.G.S. §53a-40e. It lasts for whatever duration the court sets, until modified or revoked for good cause, and violating it is a separate crime under §53a-223a.
A change takes effect October 1, 2026: where a court declines to issue a standing criminal protective order after a qualifying family violence conviction or finding, it must now state its reasons on the record.
If you ask at arraignment, you are entitled to a hearing on a contested protective order within a reasonable time. That hearing is frequently the most important thing that happens early in a case, and it is routinely waived by people who did not know to ask.
Connecticut does not have a crime called “domestic violence.” What happens is that an ordinary offense gets designated a family violence crime, which changes how it is handled.
The firm defends charges arising from a domestic or family violence incident, including assault; strangulation or suffocation; threatening; stalking, including electronic stalking; harassment; reckless endangerment; unlawful restraint; interfering with an emergency call; criminal mischief and related property offenses; custodial interference; violating conditions of release; and violating a criminal protective order, standing criminal protective order, restraining order, or civil protection order.
More serious allegations — kidnapping, burglary, home invasion, firearm offenses, and sexual assault allegations arising from an intimate-partner or family relationship — are accepted on a case-by-case basis.
Two charges worth knowing about because they surprise people:
Disorderly conduct and breach of the peace are the most commonly charged family violence offenses in Connecticut. Many cases that feel enormous to the person arrested are, on paper, a misdemeanor.
Custodial interference is where family court and criminal court collide. A parenting-time dispute — keeping a child past the scheduled return, taking a child out of state — can become a criminal charge. It is prosecuted rarely enough that most family lawyers have not handled one and most criminal lawyers do not see the custody case behind it.
For many first-time cases this is the outcome worth understanding, and the one most people are searching for.
The Family Violence Education Program, under C.G.S. §46b-38c(h), is a pretrial diversionary program. If the court grants it and you complete it, the charges are dismissed. That is a very different result from a conviction, and it is why the program drives so much of what happens early in a case.
What it actually requires:
The honest framing: for an eligible first-time case this is a path to dismissal, and it is worth pursuing seriously. It is not a formality, and it is not available to everyone.
A person subject to a restraining or protective order must transfer or surrender firearms and ammunition within 24 hours of notice. Separately, a conviction for a misdemeanor designated a family violence crime, for offenses on or after October 1, 2023, makes possession a felony under Connecticut law — and federal law carries its own prohibitions.
Family violence is an explicit factor in Connecticut’s best-interest analysis, and a protective order can restrict contact with a household before the family court has ruled on anything.
A residential protective order can keep you out of a house you own or rent.
This is the situation the firm is built for.
An arrest during a separation creates two cases on two schedules in two courthouses. A protective order entered at a criminal arraignment can change your parenting time before any family judge has looked at it. Statements made in one case can surface in the other. A decision that looks sensible in the criminal case — resolving it quickly, agreeing to conditions — can cost you significantly in the custody case, and the reverse is just as true.
Most people in this position end up with two lawyers who have never spoken to each other, coordinating between them while in crisis.
A restraining order under C.G.S. §46b-15 is a civil family matter, not a criminal case, and it is filed separately from any criminal prosecution. The firm handles restraining order matters from either side, subject to conflict screening.
A family violence arrest in Glastonbury, East Hartford, Manchester, Marlborough, or South Windsor is arraigned at Geographical Area 12, 410 Center Street in Manchester.
Any related family case — divorce, custody, or a restraining order — is heard separately, in the Hartford Judicial District at 90 Washington Street in Hartford.
Two courthouses, two schedules, two files.
When a parenting-time dispute becomes a criminal charge. Connecticut custodial interference under §§53a-97 and 53a-98, and what to do if you are charged.
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You will be in court the next business day. What happens at a Connecticut family violence arraignment, what the interview is, and what not to do tonight.
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The charges Connecticut brings after a domestic incident, what each one is, and how they are classified. Assault, threatening, disorderly conduct, and more.
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Connecticut’s pretrial diversionary program for family violence cases. Who is eligible, what it requires, and how dismissal actually works.
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An arrest during a separation creates two cases on two schedules. How a protective order affects custody, and why the two cases cannot be handled in isolation.
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The 24-hour surrender rule, what a family violence conviction means for firearm rights under state and federal law, and the consequences that outlast the case.
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Connecticut charges strangulation at three degrees, and the third can be supported without visible injury. What the charge requires.
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What a Connecticut criminal protective order restricts, how it differs from a standing criminal protective order, and how to contest one.
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Connecticut charges order violations under four separate statutes, with felony exposure. Why most violations are unintentional.
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Daniel M. Morton has been admitted in Connecticut since 2017, with roughly a decade of litigation experience spanning contested family matters and criminal defense arising from domestic and family violence. The criminal practice is limited to family violence matters, which is what allows it to sit alongside the family practice rather than compete with it.
You are arraigned on the next court day. Before that, the Family Violence Intervention Unit interviews both parties and reports to the judge. At arraignment the court sets release conditions and decides whether to enter a criminal protective order.
No. Once police make an arrest, the case belongs to the State. The complaining person’s wishes are relevant and may be heard, but they do not control whether the case continues.
A criminal protective order is entered by the criminal court while a case is pending, as a condition of release. A restraining order is a civil family matter that a person applies for separately, whether or not any criminal case exists.
A pretrial diversionary program. Admission is discretionary and requires the defendant’s motion, eligibility is limited, and it runs up to two years. On satisfactory completion and compliance, the charges are dismissed.
A person subject to a protective or restraining order must transfer or surrender firearms and ammunition within 24 hours of notice. A conviction for a misdemeanor designated a family violence crime can also make possession a felony.
Not if a residential protective order says otherwise, even if the home is yours. Violating that order is a separate crime.
No. The criminal practice is limited to charges arising from a domestic or family violence incident.
Every case starts with a conversation about what you’re facing and what it would take to handle it.
