Assault

Battery and assault occur when you hit someone or attempt to hit someone. Often, this results in injuries of varying severity, from small cuts and bruises to head injuries that require hospitalization.

Assault and battery are closely related charges, and the difference is not always clear cut. It is usually up to the discretion of the district attorney’s office which one is used based on the facts of the case. Assault is a very broad category legally speaking. This charge is used for everything from fistfights to domestic violence.

In most cases, an assault charge comes as the result of physical harm or at least an attempt to cause physical harm. It would be an atypical use of this charge if you had not attempted to physically injure another person. When you face assault charges, usually at minimum there has been either an attempt to cause physical harm, or there has been contact and the other party is claiming some type of injury.

There are other statutes that are used when fights never escalate beyond verbal abuse, threats or arguments. Battery is often used when an incident involved unwanted or uncontested touching, but did not escalate to attempts at violence.

Assault cases can be very complex, because they often pit your word against the other party’s. This can make it difficult to discover what actually happened. When investigating your case, your assault attorney will need to look at a number of factors in order to build the best possible assault defense. This can be very complicated because you have to look at all the factors, view all of the evidence that might be available, and talk to potential witnesses who may have been there.

Your attorney should look at the alleged victim’s medical records to determine if there was any injury stemming from the confrontation, and to rule out any preexisting injuries which may be mistaken for injuries related to the incident. It is not unusual for alleged victims to claim old injuries were actually caused by the defendant.

Your attorney will also explore a number of avenues to determine your strongest defense. Commonly, this involves self-defense. If you are only responding to a threat or something that happened to you, you may have an absolute defense of self-defense. These are not simple run-of-the-mill cases. They need special attention to make sure that no stone is unturned and all possible defenses that may be available are studied.

As an example, if the assault occurred at a bar site, witnesses who may have been at the bar and were not a party to the situation need to be located to relate what they saw happened. Their perspective might be that the alleged victim was the actual aggressor in the situation, in which case that would further a self-defense.

An attorney assists you by providing the strongest possible assault defense. Experience is important because an assault attorney must be able to work with a qualified investigator to look on your behalf to see what defenses are available.

Without having an attorney who has a good investigator working alongside of him, you may potentially lose out on vital evidence that could help exonerate you. There may be a video that even the district attorney’s office does not know exists, and it will not be uncovered without the aid of an assault attorney and a qualified investigator.

Without an experienced attorney, you are just going to be railroaded through the system. You need to have somebody to represent you who is going to protect your interests, and who will look at the case from your perspective to provide proper defenses.

Self-defense is the most common defense used in assault cases. There are also other possibilities, however. There is defense of others, and there is wrong person or wrong identity.

In order to offer the best assault defense, consideration must be given to the intent of the person as to whether they were trying to harm, or if it was an accident. You must also look at the total overall situation to figure out what happened and why it happened.

Attorney Pabla has been practicing law for more than a decade, and has handled hundreds of domestic violence, battery, and assault cases. He is uniquely qualified by having an understanding of how witnesses respond when they are actually questioned under oath, and the manner in which officers may present their version of the facts.

In addition, he ensures every case is thoroughly investigated. Mr. Pabla has had numerous cases dismissed because of a pure investigation that his firm had conducted. In one such case, his client was a small business owner. A customer came in who was drunk and belligerent, and the client asked him to leave the store. This customer went outside and punched himself in the face and claimed that the client assaulted him. Mr. Pabla conducted his own investigation, proving his client was truthful in his account of the incident.

When the alleged victim was called to the stand in court, he invoked his own Miranda rights and refused to testify because he was afraid to incriminate himself. What he claimed happened could not have happened, and did not happen. That case was ultimately dismissed.

When you hire Attorney Pabla to represent you in a case for an assault or battery, he is going to be aggressive in looking out for your interests by investigating the case thoroughly. Many times this investigation proves to be the key to your defense.

If you’ve been charged with assault in Sacramento, call attorney Param S. Pabla (916) 285-7900.