A few years ago, I was in a pretty serious car accident. During the aftermath, I became really familiar with a lot of different types of lawyers. I worked with personal injury lawyers, insurance lawyers, and many others. Perhaps the most important, though, was the estate planning lawyer. I was really young, and neither my wife or I had thought about starting a will. But the accident kind of scared us into it. What would happen if one of us were to die? Even when still in the hospital, I was working with the lawyer to draw up a will. Now, I have some peace and security about what the future will be like if something should happen to me. And I have a lot of experience working with various types of lawyers! The accident was kind of a blessing in disguise in that way.
Even though no one plans on getting arrested, it can happen to anyone at any point in time, especially when letting your emotions get the best of you. Being faced with an assault charge can be scary and overwhelming. You are told there is a good chance you could go to jail and pay a hefty fine. What are you going to do? Don't worry. Here are a few different defenses commonly used to defend against assault charges.
Self-Defense
One of the most commonly used defenses when faced with an assault charge is that of self-defense. To establish that this is what happened in your case, you have to show the following:
Just because you might have defended yourself doesn't mean you can pound someone and use an excessive amount of force. The force used has to be reasonable when compared with the threat. Even if you meet these elements, there is still a chance that you can be found guilty if the individual is significantly different in terms of size and age.
Defending Others
This is quite similar to that of self-defense, except that you were under the assumption that someone else was in danger of being harmed. The same rules that applied in a self-defense defense apply here as well. There has to be a reasonable amount of fear involved for this defense to be used.
Defending Your Property
If you are being charged with assault and you were defending your property from being attacked, you might have a great defense in court. After all, you are entitled to make sure your property isn't stolen or withheld from you if possible. This defense varies from one state to another, so you would need to ask your attorney about whether this would apply in your situation or not. The law is quite divided on whether you can use force to recover an item stolen versus whether you can defend against an intruder trying to break into your home. Only your attorney can determine whether your case qualifies for this defense or not.
Being charged with assault isn't the end of the world, especially if you have a truly legitimate reason for why the case came about in the first place. For more information, contact a firm like Cross, LaCross, & Murphy PLLC.
Share25 June 2015
