Getting charged with an assault wrongfully is a common thing to happen nowadays. The occurrence of assault and violence against weaker individuals is so frequent that blame can be placed on anyone having a close connection to it. Although the one that is blamed is often at fault and the criminal needs to be punished for their crimes, most times, the wrong person is put under the laws’ hold. And several innocent people have been convicted this way for severe to minor assault crimes either due to made-up evidence or false judgments of the law enforcers.
Hence, if you have been ever blamed for an assault or could be in the future, you must be well prepared to defend your case against a jury. The charges of a sexual or another assault can be severe in most severe degrees and can make up last in jail for several years. Even if the charges are proven wrong, you will have to succumb to court hearings and pay hefty legal fees to remove the tab. Not to mention the finger-pointing and hate you can get along the way.
Nothing is impossible in this world, and the law can be bent in both ways. Thus you can easily turn a case around the blame on a false victim for putting the charge down on you. But first, you must get acknowledged on some of the terms and types of assaults carried out by wrongdoers and their penalties. The following guide has all you need to know to avoid a wrongful assault conviction:
What is an Assault?
The terms assault, harassment, and similar to these are often used incorrectly. These can also be used by a person who wants to take their frustrations out on a person for a non-offensive conduct of theirs and end up putting them in danger. Some so-called activists can also use these terms to blame people for never committing any crime. Basically, an assault is a threat an offensive person sends to a victim that can either be with physical contact, weapons, or no contact at all.
Some people keep taking insolences from harsh mannered people in the form of verbal abuse and not report it thinking of it not as assault. Various degrees of verbal threatening can be marked as assault and provided a penalty to the wrongdoer.
So if you ever get charged with an assault offense, make sure that you hadn’t conducted a verbal spat with the person. If you claim innocence to their claims, you could be proved wrong if they come up with evidence of the spat in court. Also, if someone reports you without any evidence or proof of assault but provides just a statement that you could conduct it in the future is not enough for making a conviction. Assault can initially be categorized into two categories of civil assault and criminal assault; however, their features are almost the same, and only a few things can make the jury rule them apart.
Assault, Battery, and Aggravated Assault
As mentioned before, assault can be of different types and occur in various forms, and be mixed up with other abbreviations. Subsequently, terminologies like aggravated assault and battery or self-defense are mixed up with a simple assault. Confusing these terms can be dangerous while in court or talking to a law enforcer. Things can get elevated if a simple assault case is marked as battery and make the authorities take stricter actions against the convicted. For this reason, everyone must know how to score an assault to properly get it administered as a crime or remove the charge. A reliable Sacramento criminal lawyer can also be hired to understand these terms and intensities of assault cases.
An assault happens when a person, without the victim’s consent, makes contact or applies force. This can also be a without contact and through gestures and clear statements of the predator to harm the victim in the future.
As for battery, it differs from assault as only the threat is made with an assault and carried out with a battery. Under a battery offense, the charged is faced with evidently placing harm on the victim of which they had intended. At the same time, an aggravated assault is the form of gruesome assault inflicted on a person where they have been injured or inflicted violence on heavily also in a sexual way. The victim is severely hurt or near death to rule the case an aggravated crime.
Types of Assault
Apart from the densely defined terms mentioned above, assault can be of other various types. As the act of threatening and harming a person can happen in so many ways, there can be no one way to mark the blame on the inflictor to identify their penalty. For this reason, the following are some usual occurring assault charges that have differing punishments for each:
Simple
A simple assault can be as simple as a verbal spat or a high offense as inflicted violence. Although a simple assault may sound like nothing but can make the charged suffer from complex court processes and prison time. For even the slightest type of simple assault carried out by anyone, diverse consequences and jail time should be expected.
Sexual
It’s evident that a sexual assault happens due to the forceful touching of a person without consent. This can be carried out by the criminal contacting any part of a victim’s body without their permission or the course of rape being conducted on the weak individual. The court is the end judgment of whether the crime happened or not, and to rule out the forced contact. The evidence is needed with an explanation of the situation it occurred and the body part that was touched along with several other aspects.
Weaponized
An assault carried out by a weapon is a hybrid offense that has far worse penalties than a simple assault. This kind of assault often includes harm done to another person’s body with the weapons used in the act. Even if no damage was done but was intended, the attack can be ruled as a felony assault and made into a court case.
Sexual Assault with Weapons
This assault combines both a sexual assault with the use of weapons and is a higher offense than most types. This violation can be ruled out due to the perpetrator carrying an assault and intending to make sexual contact without consent. Also, if the person has threatened to touch the victim with a weapon and went ahead, it will be causing a battery.
Degrees of assault
There are many degrees to an assault by which just conviction and penalty can be appointed on the perpetrator to be carried out. The court and jury are to define the intensity of an assault by determining the degree to them. Hence, when being dragged in an assault crime, one should know the intensity of their crime by understanding the different degrees it can take listed below:
Class A
Above the felony area of assault cases are misdemeanors that contain lesser penalties and fines as they are carried out in less harmful ways. And as the degrees of various misdemeanors go, there are two classes that define the case’s intensity. Under a Class A misdemeanor assault, a person has intentionally inflicted harm on another to cause bodily injuries. The one blamed for the crime can be anyone, even a spouse with the right amount of evidence. This case can put the predator in jail for a year with a high fine of about $4000, depending on the state.
Class C
Before class A comes a class C misdemeanor assault that is of the lowest intensity of assaults. This involves the inflictor having made physical contact with the victim when it was evident that it wasn’t allowed. The penalty for the case is a small fine warning and no jail time.
First Degree Felony
A first-degree felony assault is the highest level of assault committed by a person or charged with. To be blamed for this degree of assault, a person must have conducted an aggravated assault consisting of heavy injuries or murdering an individual. If there was a use of a weapon to harm an individual, it could also be classified under first-degree assault. For committing a first degree of felony assault, a person can go to jail for a few years to life. The fine to be paid is also as high as $10.000.
Second Degree Felony Assault
After the first degree with a felony, a crime is marked as a second degree with having lesser violence used and no death through. Carrying out a second-degree felony can include the use of weapons or bodily harm. A second-degree felony assault sentence can range from 3 to 20 years in prison, depending on the severity. The fine is the same as that of a first-degree felony assault.
Third Degree Felony Assault
A third-degree felony assault charge was carried out by pressure to the victim’s breathing system. With substantial proof, the case can make the inflictor experience penalty with maximum jail time of 10 years.
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