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. Tiburon Domestic Violence Attorney – Experienced & Aggressive Lawyer and Lawyers Fighting for You in Tiburon, California
About Tiburon
Tiburon is an incorporated town in Marin County, California. It occupies most of the Tiburon Peninsula, which reaches south into the San Francisco Bay. The smaller city of Belvedere (formerly a separate island) occupies the south-east part of the peninsula and is contiguous with Tiburon. Tiburon is bordered by Corte Madera to the north and Mill Valley to the west, but is otherwise surrounded by the Bay. The population was 8,962 at the 2010 census.
The city's name derives from the Spanish word tiburón, which means "shark". The name was first given to the peninsula on which the city is situated, and probably inspired by the prevalence of locally native leopard sharks in the surrounding waters. Tiburon was formerly the southern terminus of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. This railroad carried freight, mostly lumber, to the town for transfer to barges for shipping to cities around San Francisco Bay. It is now a commuter and tourist town, linked by fast ferry services to San Francisco and with a concentration of restaurants and clothes shops. It is the nearest mainland point to Angel Island and a regular ferry service connects to the island.
Tiburon has a Town Historian, Branwell Fanning. Much of the modern history material below is drawn from his "Brief History of Tiburon", published in the Town of Tiburon's General Plan.
Tiburón means "shark" in Spanish. Whether Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala saw a number of sharks near where he anchored the San Carlos in August 1775, off what is now Angel Island, or whether the tree-covered Tiburon Peninsula looked like a shark we may never know. He named the land Punta del Tiburon, or Shark Point. The Coast Miwok Indians had lived here for thousands of years, but there is no clear concept of what they called the peninsula.
The serpentine soils of Ring Mountain and the Tiburon Hills are host to a unique plant community, including several endemic or near-endemic species, notably, the Tiburon mariposa lily, the Tiburon indian paintbrush, and the Tiburon jewelflower, as well as a number of other rare and endangered species Ring Mountain is also a significant location of Native American prehistoric sites, notably rock carvings.
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