Assault and battery are not actually a single charge – they’re two separate crimes but are often charged together. In California, assault refers to a person willfully trying to harm someone and battery refers to actually inflicting harm. To put it another way, assault is really an attempt at battery while battery is the completion of that assault. If you’ve been charged with both or either, Chambers Law Firm is here to protect your rights.
The potential penalties for assault and battery are serious
The exact penalties when a person is charged with assault and battery will depend on the type of harm attempted and how serious the resulting injuries were. In cases of minor injury, you may be charged with simple assault instead.
The majority of assault and battery charges are brought as misdemeanors with possible penalties including:
- Probation
- Fines
- Community service
- 6 months in county jail
On the other hand, an assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, and aggravated battery leading to serious injury can be charged with felonies that include penalties of numerous years in state prison. The stiffest penalties are typically dealt out for those convicted of assault and battery against a police officer or for those assaults and batteries that were a part of domestic violence.
You do have options for your defense
When you work with Chambers Law Firm, we’ll carefully consider your case, your side of the story, and the evidence against you. We’ll then work with you to decide on the best legal defense. In some cases this may mean showing that you were acting in self-defense or that you were defending others. If that’s the case, then the courts may consider your actions justified.
We could also argue that your actions or words were without intent to harm or that you didn’t have the physical ability to actually follow through on the threats of violence you made. We may even argue that the injuries were inflected accidentally. In other cases, if the evidence is mounted against you, the best way to proceed may be to argue to have the charges against you reduced. For example, we may be able to have felony charges reduced to misdemeanor charges if the injuries inflicted weren’t serious enough to merit being classified as a felony.
Your best bet is to find the right assault and battery attorney
If you’ve been accused of assault and battery then the best thing you can do for yourself is to find an attorney who will fight to defend your rights. When you choose Chambers Law Firm, you can count on our offices to use every possible legal strategy to ensure the best possible outcome. You don’t want this charge to ruin your life and neither do we. You can count on our superior legal representation and thoughtful and aggressive legal strategies.
