The misdemeanor of Domestic Assault carries severe penalties that supersede the punishment rendered by the courts and follow the convicted for the rest of their life. Keeping the convicted from finding gainful employment and making it difficult to find housing. This is fact and known by prosecutors when they press a domestic assault charge against someone. I believe that the term "Domestic Assault" is to broad of a term to use in most of the instances where it is used. Given it's status as a misdemeanor courts can postpone judgement on the case for months leaving those charged and unable to make bond to sit in jail until they are given a fair hearing. In almost all instances when a domestic violence issue arises, the prosecution will ask you to plead guilty to the offense in their plea bargain. Normally if the convicted cannot afford bail, they cannot afford their own lawyer to settle on a better deal. Even if the crime doesn't fit the title of the offense, many people in West Virginia are convicted of domestic assault. Case in point, my own Domestic Assault charge was rendered unto me in a plea bargain I accepted when my court appointed attorney informed me, that if I didn't take the deal, I could sit in jail until February waiting for a trial. I was charged in October. The charge was for challenging a former male tenant who was renting a room in my parents house to a fight in the front yard of the house upon learning that said tenant was selling illegal drugs out of our home. He then locked the door to his room and called the police saying I had threatened his family. This was after we had asked the man and his family to leave multiple times for failing to pay their rent and for instigating other arguments to that effect over the course of a few months. At the time of my incarceration, my parents filed the proper paperwork to have him evicted but it was already to late. Despite the fact that not even so much as a single punch was thrown, I have been convicted of a major crime, as have many others in West Virginia. I owe the courts a large sum of money for fines and the overbearing court costs one acquires when charged with any offense in this state. I have been unable to find work because of my new criminal background, and my fines are due in March. If left unpaid, my license will be suspended, further hindering me from once again becoming a productive member of society. I petition you today to rewrite the legal definition of Domestic Assault in West Virginia. To differentiate between the varying types of assault that can actually occur within a home, instead of using a broad generic term that tends to ruin peoples lives.