Domestic Battery: PC 243(e)(1)
Domestic battery also concerns a willful or intentional act on an intimate partner except that the injury can be trivial, though harmful or offensive, and need not have caused any pain to the victim. For a battery to occur, it can be any unwanted contact such as pushing or slapping the individual and doing so with the purpose or intent of committing harm. A battery also occurs regardless if the contact was not directly on the victim. For example, smashing the victim’s car window while the person was inside, snatching a necklace off the intimate partner or kicking the victim’s cat in the person’s presence could be charged as domestic battery.
Domestic battery is a misdemeanor though you can face aggravated battery charges, which can be charged as a felony if the intimate partner suffered serious bodily injury, and face state prison time. In many cases, the court will require the offender to attend a batterer’s treatment program for at least one year as a condition of probation. A subsequent domestic battery conviction results in a mandatory minimum jail time of 48 hours.
Possible Defenses to a Domestic Violence Charge
There are numerous defenses available to anyone charged with any of the above charges, some of which are dependent on the crime for which you are being prosecuted.
- Self-defense. You can asset self-defense if you reasonably believed you or someone near you was in imminent danger of being harmed or unlawfully or offensively touched and that you needed to apply force to protect yourself or that other person. The force used must be only that required or necessary to defend yourself.
- Lack of injury. If no injury occurred, then certainly you cannot be prosecuted under PC 243.5, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant. You need not have produced a visible injury, though, to be charged with a battery offense or elder abuse.
- Lack of a sustained or reasonable fear for one’s safety or well-being. To be prosecuted for criminal threats, the victim must have had a reasonable fear of the threat and it must have lasted for more than a moment. Merely being startled or being told by the defendant that he or she may get you some day may not be enough to constitute a crime.
- False accusations. Many times, a jealous spouse or ex-dating partner or vengeful family member will fabricate a charge of assault or abuse. Often, a comprehensive medical examination will not contradict the accuser’s account of how an alleged injury occurred.
- Mistaken assumptions. In some cases, someone who is required to report suspected abuse or domestic violence will report it to authorities. A criminal defense attorney may have to launch a separate investigation to exonerate the defendant by showing that either someone else was responsible or that some other plausible explanation explains the injury.
- Violation of constitutional rights. Police must follow certain protocol that adheres to rights found in the federal and state constitutions regarding reasonable searches and seizures, extracting confessions and lawfully arresting someone.
Contact the Domestic Violence Attorney Group
A domestic violence accusation may be result of a mistake or a fabricated allegation from someone seeking retribution or vengeance against you. There are numerous cases where mitigating circumstances, unknown facts, misunderstandings or overzealous prosecutions result in unsubstantiated or excessive charges that our attorneys can examine and appropriately advise you. Promptly retaining an experienced domestic violence lawyer from the Domestic Violence Attorney Group can often mean the difference between getting your case dismissed, charges reduced, or having you plea to a different offense with lesser penalties. Beverly Hills Domestic Violence Attorney – Experienced & Aggressive Lawyer and Lawyers Fighting for You in Beverly Hills, California
About Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the City of Los Angeles. It is home to the shopping district Rodeo Drive.
Gaspar de Portolà arrived in the area that would become Beverly Hills on August 3, 1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard. The area was settled by Maria Rita de Valdez and her husband in 1828. They called their 4,500 acres (18 km2) of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. By the 1880s the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres (0.30 km2) and was being rapidly bought up by anglos from Los Angeles and the East coast.
Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker acquired most of it and used it for farming lima beans. At this point the area was known as the Hammel and Denker Ranch. By 1888, Denker and Hammel were planning to build a town called Morocco on their holdings.
Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. Specifically, Beverly Hills is bordered on the northwest by the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air and the Santa Monica Mountains, on the east by West Hollywood, the Carthay neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, and on the south by the Beverlywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The area's "Platinum Triangle" is formed by the city of Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Bel Air and Holmby Hills.
Beverly Hills has a hot and warm Mediterranean climate, with an average high of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius) in August, and an average high of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19.5 degrees Celsius) in January (source Weather.com). Beverly Hills also receives an average 18 inches (460 mm) of rain per year. Summers are marked by warm to hot temperatures with very little wind, while winters are warm to moderate, to cool with occasional rain alternating with periods of Santa Ana winds. Measurable snowfall has been recorded only in 1882, 1922, 1932 and 1949.
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