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. Lakewood Domestic Violence Attorney – Experienced & Aggressive Lawyer and Lawyers Fighting for You in Lakewood, California
About Lakewood
Lakewood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 80,048 at the 2010 census. It is bordered by Long Beach on the west and south, Bellflower on the north, Cerritos on the northeast, Cypress on the east, andHawaiian Gardens on the southeast. Major thoroughfares include Lakewood (SR 19), Bellflower, and Del Amo Boulevards and Carson and South Streets. The San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605) runs through the city's eastern regions.
Sometimes called "an instant city" because of its origins—going from lima bean fields in 1950 to a well-developed city by 1960—Lakewood is, along with Levittown, New York, the archetypal post World War II American suburb.
Lakewood is a planned, post-World War II community. Developers Louis Boyar, Mark Taper and Ben Weingart are credited with "altering forever the map of Southern California". Begun in late 1949, the completion of the developers' plan in 1953 helped in the transformation of mass-produced working-class housing from its early phases in the 1930s and 1940s to the reality of the 1950s. The feel of this transformation from the point of view of a resident growing up in Lakewood was captured by D. J. Waldiein his award-winning memoir, Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir.
Lakewood's primary thoroughfares are mostly boulevards with landscaped medians, with frontage roads on either side in residential districts. Unlike in most similar configurations, however, access to the main road from the frontage road is only possible from infrequently spaced collector streets. This arrangement, hailed by urban planners of the day, is a compromise between the traditional urban grid and the arrangement of winding "drives" and culs-de-sac that dominates contemporary suburban and exurban design.
Lakewood is credited as a pioneer among California cities in services provision. Although it is an incorporated city, Lakewood contracts for most municipal services, with most of these provided by Los Angeles County and, to a lesser extent, by other public agencies and private industry. Lakewood was the first city in the nation to contract for all of its municipal services when it incorporated as a municipality in 1954, making it the nation's first "contract city." Many other Los Angeles suburbs, such as Cerritos and Diamond Bar, have adopted the "Lakewood Plan."
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