An assault charge often carries with it the potential for severe criminal penalties. If you are convicted of this offense, you could spend years, if not the rest of your life, behind bars. You also may have to pay expensive restitutions to the state or the victim. Instead of taking your chances in court alone, you have the right to retain legal counsel to advise and represent you. You can benefit from hiring a qualified, knowledgeable assault lawyer to handle your case.
Proving Self-defense
If the charge against you stemmed from you defending yourself from physical harm or death, you do not deserve to be convicted and sent to jail. You may allege that the reported victim tried to attack you first, and you only defended yourself.
When you hire an assault lawyer to represent you, you can prove your claim and show that you did not inflict harm on the accuser on purpose. Your lawyer can use facts, such as the direction or flow of the punches, wounds, or bruising. They can also argue that your physical stature made it impossible for you to launch the initial attack.
The evidence that your lawyer can find from the case can be enough to instill doubt in the jurors' minds and compel them to find you not guilty. They may realize that you were only trying to defend yourself and that you did not initiate the attack that led to the accuser being injured.
Mitigating Circumstances
Your assault lawyer can also use the circumstances of the crime to show that you did not intend to harm the accuser. You may suffer from a mental health condition that caused you to lose control of yourself temporarily. Your assault lawyer can use your mental health condition to argue that you did not intend to harm the victim and should not be sentenced to years or longer in jail.
Your assault lawyer may also argue down the charges against you, particularly if this is your first criminal offense. You could be sentenced to counseling and community service instead of time in prison.
An assault lawyer can defend you when you have been accused of this offense. They can show that you actually were defending yourself because you feared being injured or killed. Your attorney can point out mitigating circumstances or argue down the charges against you. Reach out to an assault lawyer for more information.
Share9 March 2021
My son and a group of his friends got in some trouble for trespassing and were arrested. Every one of the boys that were there were charged with trespassing, criminal mischief and vandalism. I contacted all of the other boys' parents and we got together to discuss the situation. After hearing the boys' stories about what happened that day, we knew that we had to hire an attorney to get the boys out of some of the trouble they were in. I have been working on my blog to help other parents that are struggling with the legal system prosecuting their kids for things that they may not have done.
