There is a lot of confusion that exists about assault and battery. Most people are under the impression that both of these are the same thing and the aggravated classification is simply a more serious form of the crime. However, this is not so. Assault and battery are two distinctly different crimes.
Assault V/S Battery
Criminal law defines assault as a deliberate act that causes the victim to believe that they are about to be physically harmed. If you threaten another person and you are obviously capable of carrying out that action, then you can be charged with assault. You need not have actually made any physical contact or carried out your actions. Just making the threat is sufficient to get you charged.
What this means is, if you are threatening another person, a police officer can intercede and arrest you for it without actually waiting for you to physically inflict any harm on your victim.
On the other hand, when there is actual physical contact, the crime is classified as battery.
The main difference between the two is the absence of physical contact in one and the definite occurrence of physical contact in the other.
What is Aggravated Assault?
While a simple assault involves just making a threat, there are several different factors that can change the level of danger involved. For example, holding a gun or a knife in your hand while making the threat, raises the act to an aggravated assault, even if you do not make use of the weapon. Just holding it in your hand while making the threat shows intent to cause grievous harm and can put your victim in serious fear for their safety.
Some crimes are classified as aggravated because of the victim's status. These include threats that are carried out on teachers, fire fighters and police officers or any threat made while the person was carrying out their duty.
The assailant's mental state of mine can also play a role in categorizing an aggravated assault as such. For example, if the threat was made with the intention to cause fear of severe harm of if the person was acting irresponsibly with absolute indifference to human life.
In some states, a sexual assault is classified under a separate category, whereas in other states it could be charged as aggravated, assault/battery, sexual assault or rape depending upon the state and the nature of the crime itself.
Selecting a Criminal Defense Attorney What Is an SOC Agreement in a Criminal Case What You Should Know If You Were Criminally Accused Recording With Hidden Devices - What's Legal and What Isn't
0 comments:
Post a Comment