Denton Criminal Defense Lawyers

Understanding Your Criminal Assault Case

Assault can be something very hard to understand by its legal definition. Assault is defined as an unlawful, intentional attempt to injure someone physically. It is also defined as an act that may cause apprehension in the victim that offensive or harming contact is imminent. For the act to be considered assault you must have both of those stipulations. If someone has made a threat but there are no actions to follow then it is legally not considered assault. If the threat is followed by an action that either shows an act is going to be committed or is the act that was threatened, then it is classified as assault. Assault needs to have intent, which means that the person deliberately meant to injure someone else. Understand that apprehension does not mean fear. Apprehension is defined as an anticipation of future injury that will occur by the assaulter.

Criminal assault cases and civil assault cases are two different types of cases. Criminal assault is strictly considered a crime and nothing else. The assaulter will be charged or not and sentenced if need be and the case will be complete. A civil assault case would be where the case is both civil assault and criminal assault. This means that while the person is charged for the crime they committed, they are also ordered to give compensation for any damages that they may and probably committed to the victim of the assault. This type of assault technically counts as two different cases and will be tried like that.

For more information or for help with your assault case, contact Denton Criminal Defense Lawyers of Alexander and Associates at 972-420-6560.