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From Country to Courts hosted by Mike Hammond, radio veteran, Country Radio Hall of Fame inductee, and longtime Criminal Court Clerk.
This podcast explores the vital issues at the heart of our courts and criminal justice system in a way that’s clear and compelling.
Each episode will dive into insights on how the court system works, what citizens can expect if they ever find themselves in court, and the programs and services many never hear about, like Veterans Recovery Court, Mental Health Court, and driver's license reinstatement programs.
Whether you’re facing a legal issue, serving jury duty, or just curious about what happens behind courtroom doors, From Country to Courts offers real world context and practical information to help you better understand the justice system and your place in it.
Mike: Hello everyone, and thanks again for joining us on our podcast, From Country to the Courts. I’m Mike Hammond, Knox County Criminal Court Clerk, and today we have with us Michelle Henry, who is the supervisor down in Fourth Circuit. Now, for those of you not familiar with the Fourth Circuit, that’s where we file orders of protection, some divorce hearings are also heard there, and we also do some child custody work. And so, I kind of refer to it as our family court. And so Michelle, how long have you been in the office? You’ve been here quite some time.
Michelle: I’ve worked here for almost 37 years.
Mike: Oh, wow. See, she started when she was five years old.
Michelle: Yes, exactly.
Mike: She is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s youngest clerk.
Michelle: Exactly.
Mike: But because you have that experience, you have seen a lot, you’ve done a lot, and you have really seen the laws change from one year to the next with regards to orders of protection and that type of thing. So, what we want to talk about today is we want to just do the basics of filing an order of protection. Most of the orders of protection are filed by women. It doesn’t mean that men cannot or means they haven’t [laugh] at some time because they have. And so, anyone can file an order of protection, but basically it’s mostly women, probably about 85%, would you say—
Michelle: Yes. Yes.
Mike: —is filed by women? So, let’s talk about the fact that someone needs to file an order of protection. What is the first step?
Michelle: So, when they decide that they’re going to file an order of protection, they’re going to come to our office, or they’re going to go to the Family Justice Center. Once they show up at our counter, we’re going to have someone there who’s going to explain the order of protection, the steps for the order of protection, the most pertinent information that we need that our judge wants to see on there. They’re going to write that down. Once they get that all filled out, we will help them complete that, then we swear them in. We give them a card, we give them information that they can call back to our office to see if the judge has signed it.
We’re also going to let them know that there’s different agencies that can help them if they need further information. Then our judge is going to—we’re going to type up that order, our judge is going to look at that, and he’s going to determine if that should be a petition only, or if it’s actually going to be an order of protection ex parte, which means that it’s going to be a temporary order. Once that person is served, that temporary order goes in effect. We’re going to give them a court date. Our officers are going to call the petitioner back and let them know, this is your court date. Both parties will show up for court that day, and then once they go in front of the judge, the judge determines if that case should be granted for a year.
Mike: You said something though that I want to make sure that we clarify, and that is you said something to the effect of, “We help you fill it out.” Now, we do not tell them what to say. What we do is we look at that order of protection, we look at the paperwork, if they haven’t filled out something correctly, or if they’ve left something out—and the judge likes detail—
Michelle: Yes.
Mike: —and many times we’ll say, make sure that you’re giving us detail. Now, we don’t give them legal advice—
Michelle: Correct.
Mike: —but we do give them legal information.
Michelle: Yes. Our judge does like to have everything filled out correctly, as much information as possible, so that’s what we go and we just make sure that we’ve got date of births, we’ve got addresses. So, we don’t give them the legal advice, but we do make sure that the information that the judge requires, that it’s on there.
Mike: So, someone comes in and files an order of protection against another individual. How does the process work to let the other individual know that an order of protection has been filed against them?
Michelle: So, once we have gotten that paperwork ready, we send it down to our Sheriff’s Department, or if it goes out of county, or if it goes out of state. Once we send that to our officers, the officer for Knox County will go out and they will try to locate that person, and they will actually serve them. Everything that was filed, they will serve that on them and let them know, this is what’s been filed, this is what you can and cannot do, and this is your court date; make sure you go to court on that day. And that’s when the officer will then call the petitioner and say your respondent, or your defendant, has been served. This is your court date; make sure that you show up for court that day.
Mike: You also talked about giving it to the judge and so forth. I know that sometimes people will come and they’ll fill out an order of protection, whether it’s here or at the Family Justice Center, and they think that because they filled it out, they have an order of protection, and that’s not the case.
Michelle: That is not the case.
Mike: So, if you would explain a little bit about the process, once you have filled it out, that’s just the first step.
Michelle: Yes. Once they have filled it out, we’ve made sure that it’s complete. We type up the order that the judge looks at to determine if that’s going to be a petition only or ex parte. So, the process there, once they have filed it and we’ve typed up that order, it’s at the judge’s convenience to look at that to make sure that it is correct, he is going to sign it, and then the process. So, it doesn’t get done right away; it’s not a 30-minute in and out.
It’s at the judge’s convenience. If he’s in court, and he’s got stuff going on, it may be late that afternoon, or it could be the first thing the next morning. So, we do give them cards, give them information, let them know that they can call back later that afternoon or first thing in the morning, so that they can check to see if their order—we let them know it’s not in effect until the officer serves it.
Mike: That’s one of the things, too, about Judge McMillan—he’s the judge in Fourth Circuit—he’s very diligent in checking paperwork to make sure that if things have been filed, I know sometimes he comes into the office maybe two or three times a day just to check on things. And so, people can have the judge look at their orders of protection petitions pretty quickly, usually within 24 to 48 hours, unless he’s on vacation, but then he has some backups where people can also look at it as well. Now, let’s talk about the Family Justice Center. Let’s say someone goes to the Family Justice Center and they fill out an order of protection there. It is up to the people at the Family Justice Center to get it to us, so let’s talk about that dynamic and how that works.
Michelle: The person goes in, checks in at the Family Justice Center, they help them complete the paperwork and once the paperwork is completed, they will email that to us. There again, we go back over it just to make sure everything’s filled out correctly, and once it is filled out, then we print that out. And again, we’re going to prepare the order and we’re going to let our judge look at it. Again, it’s at his convenience when he gets ready to look at those, if he’s in court or—so he will come by, he will pick up that order, look at it and determine, again, if the order should be granted or if it’s going to be a petition only.
Mike: Let’s say that someone takes out an order of protection and the judge grants it or it’s, kind of, in limbo waiting on a hearing or whatever and the individual decides, you know, I think I want to withdraw that. I really don’t want to move forward with it. What do they need to do at that point?
Michelle: So, at that point, they would come back to the clerk’s office, whether it was filed at the Justice Center or at our office, they would come back to Fourth Circuit Court, to the counter. They have to present their photo ID to have that dismissed. They would let us know that they would like to withdraw that and so we make a photo copy of their driver’s license and have them to sign off on the order of dismissal. The judge does see that that person did come to the counter and has asked that it be dismissed. He looks at it and determines if he’s going to sign that dismissal.
Mike: In another podcast, we want to talk about what happens when you go to court because Thursday is what we call order of protection day, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other hearings that could go on. But normally Thursday is where we have a lot of people come in and the judge will have an assistant who will help them look at the orders of protection, and that’s when he will hear evidence, and you know, we want to talk about that. But people ask me from time to time, how much does it cost to file an order of protection?
Michelle: There’s no fee for an order of protection. That’s state law. There could be a fee at the end of the case that would be taxed to the defendant or the respondent, and that’s the only time that there’s any cost.
Mike: People can come to our office 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday—of course, we’re closed on holidays—and they can request paperwork. We will give them the paperwork to fill out and we’ll review it, again, like you said, to make sure that it’s complete. We don’t tell them what to say or anything like that, but then at that point, we’ll take it to the judge and then the judge will determine what he’s going to do at that point. Now, the judge could say, I think I’m going to wait until we have a hearing. So, you may not get an order of protection that day or even that week. It might be on your hearing date. Is that correct?
Michelle: That’s correct. That’s what we say as a petition only or an ex parte. So, a petition only is going to be, hey, there’s something here. I would like for the parties to show up for court, go before the judge, and then he determines, yes, there should be an order or no, this case, there’s not enough there. Totally up to him. But he feels like there’s something there, so he’ll issue a petition only. Next, of course, is the ex parte. The ex parte is again, if he grants that ex parte, it’s not going to go in effect until that person is served. So, you may think, I’ve got that order, but it’s not going to go in effect until it’s actually served on the person that you filed against.
Mike: Knox County is lucky to have someone like Michelle Henry, who has been in the office for over 30 years because she understands the law, she knows the ins and outs of orders of protection and the paperwork that you would need to file for a divorce, for example, or sometimes child custody and that type of thing. And so, it is rare that you have someone in the office that is that knowledgeable because actually attorneys will contact her and ask her questions, you know, because she is so knowledgeable. So, for those of you who would be interested in taking out an order of protection, you can come by our counter, you can go to the Family Justice Center, but know that we do have experienced people here to help you through the process. Because we know it’s emotional, we know it’s painful, and so we do everything we can to help people. And we’re not judgmental at all. Whatever your story is, it’s your story.
Michelle: We’re proud of our OP—I mean, we have an OP team. It does mean something to our office. It’s important to us to make the people feel when they come to the counter that we’re there to help them, we’re not judging them, we’re there for whatever information that we can give to them. So, our whole OP team is great about listening to issues or questions, or we have so much information at our counter that’s provided by different agencies because we do want to help them. We understand that, you know, they’re going through a difficult time, so we’re not there to judge them, we’re there just to help them.
Mike: Michelle Henry, thank you so much for joining us on our—
Michelle: Thank you.
Mike: Podcast today. I’m Mike Hammond, and coming up in subsequent weeks, we’re going to be delving more into orders of protection. We’ll be talking about what happens when you file for divorce papers, and we’ll talk about what happens when you go to court because a lot of people will not hire a lawyer. They can’t afford it, and so they will represent themselves, but the judge still is going to want evidence, and so we’re going to talk about that in the coming weeks. So again, thank you for joining us on From Country to the Courts.
Mike: This has been From Country to the Courts. I appreciate your listening. You can follow me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, don’t forget to give me a five-star review on the app of your choice. Thanks, and I’ll see you on the next episode.