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Name: People v. Beckemeyer
Case #: D065565
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 4 DCA
Division: 1
Opinion Date: 06/05/2015
Summary

Postconviction domestic violence protective order (Pen. Code, § 136.2, subd. (i)(1)) may include a person the defendant actually assaulted during a domestic violence incident, even if the victim and the defendant did not have a domestic relationship. After Beckemeyer’s girlfriend broke up with him, he went to her house, beat her and her adult son, and then tried to snap her neck. He pled guilty to attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend and assault with a deadly weapon on her son. The trial court also imposed a protective order under section 136.2, subdivision (i)(1) restraining him from having any contact with either his ex-girlfriend or her adult son for 10 years. He appealed, arguing that the protective order was improperly imposed with respect to his ex-girlfriend’s son because the son was not a domestic violence victim. Held: Affirmed. Section 136.2 authorizes a postconviction restraining order when the crime qualifies as a “domestic violence” crime and the protected person qualifies as a victim. Penal Code section 136 defines victim for purposes of section 136.2 as any person against whom there is reason to believe a crime has been committed. Here, Beckemeyer’s crime against his ex-girlfriend qualified as a domestic violence crime. Even though Beckemeyer was not in a domestic relationship with the ex-girlfriend’s adult son, the court was authorized to issue the order as to him. The son fell within the broad definition of victim and he was assaulted during the domestic violence incident. (Cf. People v. Delarosarauda (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 205, 208, 211 [court could not impose protective order barring defendant from having contact with children who were present, but uninjured, during a domestic violence incident between the defendant and his cohabitant].)