Battery Requires Physical Contact, While Assault Doesn’t
Video Transcribed: So, can I be charged with assault and battery? Hi, I’m Ty Smith, a lawyer in OKC with Wirth Law. And assault and battery, this is kind of a part two of the “What is assault” video I made previously.
Now, assault and battery, I covered assault already in a previous video so you might want to go back and watch that one if you want to kind of cover that one. Battery is the actual physical, unlawful, and unprivileged contact you make with someone else. That’s a battery. Doesn’t have to be hard, necessarily. I mean, if you… Any unwanted contact that a reasonable person wouldn’t want, can be considered a battery. Now we combine assault and battery when we create a physical… a creation of a feeling of imminent harm in the victim, so they feel like they’re about to be hurt, and then contact occurs. It’s irrelevant whether they’re actually hurt.
If you say, “I’m going to hurt you” to someone, you run at them, grab them by the shirt and push them off your property. Didn’t hurt them. I mean, they just suffered some minor discomfort. Doesn’t matter, you’ve committed an assault and a battery. Now in Oklahoma, the maximum jail time for assault in battery is 90 days and a fine of up to a thousand dollars. Of course, those are still misdemeanors. However, if you have been charged with this by the state, do not hesitate to hire an attorney. The sooner you can get an attorney on your case and work on it potentially, especially if this is your first violent charge or anything like that, we can, we criminal attorneys, we can help you. We can get it either dismissed or get it pled down to something much less offensive, if you will.
If you are currently being charged by the state with assault and battery, or you know someone who is, feel free to contact me, a criminal defense attorney in Oklahoma. You can either go to the Wirth Law Office website, or you can contact me at theoklahomacityattorney.com. I would love to speak to you about this. And I look forward to hearing from you.
