Assault And Battery Charges: What Is The Main Difference?

Most people, who are not familiar with how the justice system functions, are largely used to thinking that assault and battery are the same kind of charges and are therefore treated equally in the court of law. In reality, despite the fact that assault and battery often go back to back, the offenses are different and it is important to distinguish them properly.

Assault charges are only applicable when a person threatened to injure you or harm you in any way and you have valid reasons to believe that the threat is legitimate. On the other hand, a battery offense is when a person already harmed you physically.

To make it more understandable, let us review the following situations:

• You are chatting with a group of people online and you are having an argument. Everyone is trying to prove that he is right and in the end, a person from the group threatens to find you via your IP address and kill you. While this may seem as an unlikely scenario, you feel threatened and you have reasons to believe that the person may have the skills to establish your location. You do not feel safe anymore, so you go to the police. You are pressing assault charges, since the individual threatened to harm you. However, if the guy was simply fooling around and you knew that his threats were jokes, you cannot press any charges, for there was no danger to you.
•  Same situation. You are arguing with a group of people online, when one of them threatens to find you using your IP address and kill you. Eventually, the guy finds you and tries to harm you. You are injured in the process and you are pressing charges. The person, who attacked you, will be charged with both the assault and battery. The assault charges are based on the fact that the person threatened you and the battery charges are based on the fact that the person tried to kill you and traumatized you in the process.
• In certain situations, people will jump at you from nowhere and will injure you. Hence, they will be charged with battery only, since there were no actual threats and the individual attacked you without any warnings.

One way or the other, if you or your loved ones are in the kind of situation when you are seeking justice and you wish to make sure that the person, who attacked you will be judged properly, it is very important to get in touch with a qualified as well as experienced criminal defense lawyer, who will have what it takes to get you the most desirable outcome. Only a good attorney will know how to handle the judge and your opponent’s defense in order to ensure quick and effective success. A professional criminal defense  legal representative is a key for succeeding in criminal cases as such, regardless of whether it is a battery or assault case. The lawyer’s knowledge could prove to be useful and critical to winning the case as quickly as possible.

Arrested for an assault or a battery? Contact us now!