Battery

All Newport Beach Cases heard at the Harbor Justice Center, 4601 Jamboree Rd. Newport Beach, CA., 92660

It should also be noted that the Newport Beach Police are very sensitive to the desires of locals to keep the area safe and property values up. They do not hesitate to arrest people who are acting in a violent manner.

Assault and Battery are often mentioned in the same sentence; however, there is substantial difference. Assault means you appear to be about to strike someone else and you put them in reasonable apprehension of fear; a battery means you have actual physical contact with the person. Misdemeanor cases are filed under Penal Code Section 242 and felony charges are filed under Penal Code Section 243.

A battery can be as minor as a shove or as serious as putting someone in a coma.
A fight in a bar where one person punches another would be a battery. A battery can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony. The District Attorney usually decides on a misdemeanor or a felony based on the degree of injury of the victim. The more serious the injury the more likely it will be filed as a felony. Generally a broken bone, laceration requiring stitches or other similar type of injury or worse will result in a felony filing.

Batteries and Assaults can be charged as felonies or misdemeanors. If charged with a misdemeanor, the client cannot do more then one year in jail while felonies can send a person away to prison for more then one year.

Newport Beach Battery Attorney Will Bruzzo has successfully defended many battery cases. The most common defense to these charges is self defense. This complete defense to the crime requires that the client have used force to reasonably defend himself or another person. If the Prosecution cannot disprove that the client acted in self defense then the client should be found NOT GUILTY of all charges.

Newport Beach Battery Attorney Will Bruzzo has successfully used the defense of self defense to defend his clients. In one case, Mr. Bruzzo’s client was actually the first one to throw a punch which caused the victim to go into a coma when he hit the pavement. Despite the fact that Mr. Bruzzo’s client threw the first punch, Mr. Bruzzo was still able to effectively use Self Defense by showing that his much smaller client, reasonably thought he was about to get hit and so he acted preemptively in hitting first. The client was acquitted of all charges and walked free. See People v. Mark Vasquez. Contact the Law Offices of William W. Bruzzo for any battery case at (714) 547-4636.