Assault and Battery Attorney

The charge of battery in Florida simply means that a person has been charged with an unwanted touching of another person.  This could mean anything from a slap to a punch to a grabbing of the arm.  The defense of a battery charge may include the investigation of whether the parties had previously agreed to fight- meaning that they were “mutual combatants;” whether the unwanted touching was accidental; whether the correct person has been charged; and of course, whether there is independent evidence of the event, such as video recording or eye witnesses.

A simple battery charge is a misdemeanor (insert link to misdemeanor page), and is most often charged when the person named as the victim has no serious or permanent injuries.

An aggravated battery charge is a felony, and is most often charged if the person named as the victim has serious or permanent injuries, or if the person accused of the crime is accused of having used some sort of item as a weapon.

When the police have been called to the scene after the incident occurred, they have to rely on the information that is provided to them by witnesses.  When the two people involved in an altercation are the only witnesses, the police are left to decide who they believe, and then make an arrest of the person they think committed the crime.  In these situations, the person who is charged with the battery is not always the person who started the altercation, but was forced to defend himself. When our clients are faced with a wrongful battery arrest, our job is to investigate the case, obtain any available evidence, and provide the prosecutor with the information that can convince them to drop the charges against our client.

There are times when even the person named as the victim in a battery case recognizes that charges should not have been filed against the person who was arrested.  In those cases, we work with the victim to show the prosecutor the error in the arrest and why the battery charge should be dropped.

We recognize that even if the charge is a simple battery, which is a relatively “small” charge, the case is one of the most important matters in our client’s life, and we treat it with the same importance as we treat all of our other cases, and work to obtain the best result possible.