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. Rockport Domestic Violence Attorney – Experienced & Aggressive Lawyer and Lawyers Fighting for You in Rockport, California
About Rockport
Rockport (formerly, Cotineva) is an unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California. It is located 7.25 miles (12 km) north-northwest of Westport, at an elevation of 30 feet (9 m).
Rockport started as a small company town serving the timber industry on the Pacific Ocean coast among redwood forests in Northern California. The community is regarded as the southern end of the Lost Coast region; it is where State Highway 1, which runs very close along the coast for most of its length, instead turns inland before merging with U.S. Route 101 at Leggett.
Around 1877, William R. Miller constructed the first sawmill at Rockport, then called Cottoneva. The mill boasted a double circular saw, edger, and planer, with the mill having a capacity of 20,000 board feet (1,700 cu ft or 50 m3) of lumber per day. An unusual aspect of the site was a 270-foot (80 m) wire suspension bridge, built in 1877 to connect the mainland to a small island in the ocean. Ships bound for San Francisco and other ports would call at this island, sometimes called Pelican Island, to pick up the milled lumber, which would be brought across the bridge from the mainland by train.
Miller sold his mill in 1886 to the Cottoneva Lumber Company, who lost the mill to fire in 1900. Around 1907, the New York and Pennsylvania lumber Company acquired Cottoneva and built a new mill destroyed by fire in 1912. Between 1924 and 1926, the Finkbine-Guild Lumber Company from Jackson, Mississippi modernized the town and built a new electric sawmill and a logging railroad. They abandoned operations in 1927 and, facing financial ruin, their assets were acquired by the Great Southern Lumber Company of Bogalusa, Louisiana to form the Southern Redwood Company. After a decade of bankruptcy, the mill reopened in 1938 as the Rockport Redwood Company (a subsidiary of an association of Kansas and Oklahoma lumber retailers headed by Ralph Rounds.) The railroad was dismantled in 1939. The sawmill burned again in September, 1942, but reopened in July, 1943. Rough cut lumber was trucked to Fort Bragg, California, for shipment over the California Western Railroad. Rounds built a lumber seasoning yard and finishing plant in Cloverdale, California in 1948. When its sawmill closed for the last time in 1957, Rockport was a town of about 500 people with a company store, a community town hall, and a company doctor, as well as employee housing. A post office operated at Rockport from 1888 to 1903, from 1926 to 1934, and from 1938 to 1957. The town hall was also used for dances, a movie theatre, and local plays. There was also a grade school that went from grades 1 thru 6. As the school house only had three classrooms, each room had two grades. 1st and 2nd grade in one classroom, 2nd and 3rd in one, and 5th and 6th in another. Seventh graders and higher were bused to Ligget Valley High School. As of 1997 the old school house was still standing. It is the only building left in Rockport. All other homes and buildings had been bulldozed 30 or 40 years ago.
Georgia-Pacific Corporation purchased the Rockport site and Rounds' Cloverdale milling operation in 1967. Harry Merlo was vice president and general manager of the firm of Rounds and Kirkpatrick at the time of purchase. In 1971 Merlo became executive vice president of Georgia-Pacific's western lumber and plywood operations. Federal Trade Commission action initiated in 1972 required Georgia-Pacific to transfer California Assets to a newly formed Louisiana-Pacific Corporation with Harry Merlo as its president. Mendocino Redwood Company acquired Rockport from Louisiana-Pacific in 1998.
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