And you think all that would have happened if the officer wasn’t known to the court? Maybe I’m wrong. Probably even, but from reading two articles it seems that this happened only because the cop was known and it made it so questions were asked. I sort of doubt it would have worked that way for me.
Yes, I do. I've read the law -- all 26 pages -- twice. What the law says is that a preliminary hearing "shall" be held the same day the petition (her application) is filed, or the next court date following. At this preliminary hearing, the "respondent" (the person the applicant wants protection from) is NOT notified and is not required (or allowed) to appear. If the judge thinks the complaint is valid, he issues a
temporary ERPO (Extreme Risk Protective Order). That order is enough for the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction over the respondant's place of residence to serve the order and to seize any firearms the respondent has.
Then, within two weeks, there "shall" be another hearing, at which the respondent may appear, to determine whether the temporary order will be extended to a full year's duration, or if it will be cancelled as of the date of the hearing.
I've been discussing this with a lawyer, and neither of us can find where in the law it allows what happened to happen. There was no preliminary hearing. Not because the judge knew the cop, but because the woman found a loophole that allowed her -- at HER request -- to bypass the preliminary, emergency hearing and to proceed directly to the full hearing at which the respondent (the cop) also appears. Multiple articles have conjectured that she did this because she knew she had lied on the petition (first about having a child in common with the officer, and second about his being an imminent danger to her) and that her petition would die right there. Her aim seems to have been just to harass the cop as much as she could get away with, so she went for the full hearing so he would have to appear and hire a lawyer.
But ... he didn't appear, and he didn't hire a lawyer. The state attorney general assigned two assistant AGs to defend the cop. They appeared, but the cop didn't.
I concede that the state AG would not have assigned two assistant AGs to defend any John Doe off the street but, aside from that, the case wasn't fast-tracked or anything because the judge knew the cop.