Assault Charge Dismissed – Plymouth Lawyer – 35th District Court
Plymouth lawyer, Aaron J. Boria obtained another dismissal of an assault charge at the 35th District Court this past week. Our client, who had never been charged with a crime before found himself facing criminal charges after an argument erupted in the Busch’s Parking lot at Sheldon and Five Mile Road. Luckily for him, the case will ultimately dismissed and he will never have to tell anyone ever that he was convicted of a crime.
Assault Charge Plymouth
Our client resides in a subdivision in Plymouth. Over the course of the summer a teenager had been zipping around in a Dodge Challenger greatly exceeding the speed limit so much so that our client believed he was a danger to the neighborhood.
On this particular day our client was on his way to get groceries from Bush’s. While he was getting into his car he saw that Challenger zip passed his house once again.
When he pulled up to Busch’s he saw the Challenger parked nearby. He decided he would confront the speeding driver. When the teen came out our client confronted him regarding his speed. The two of them started arguing.
According to the police report and the teenager, he claimed that he had a bag of food in his hand and during the argument our client kicked the food. The teen then went into a nearby coffee shop and our client left.
Someone had obtained our clients license plate. When the Plymouth police showed up they used the plate to track out client down to his home. The police showed up, and questioned him about the incident. According to the police report our client admitted to kicking the food. Ultimately he was charged with a misdemeanor for the incident.
The matter was heard at the 35th District Court in Plymouth and heard in front of Judge Lowe.
Assault and Battery Charge
To be charged with an assault and battery the prosecuting attorney must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to come into physical contact with someone, that you did come into contact with that person, and that it was against their will.
Even though our client did not actually hit the person directly an assault and battery can occur when you come into contact with something closely connected to a person. An example is usually when you knock something out of a person’s hand, but in this case kicking a bag of food they were holding would also count.
While the case might seem petty (and yes it was) it was still an assault and battery. Even the pettiest assault and battery is still punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a fine of $500 plus the cost of prosecution, cost to the police, up to 2 years on probation, and could include anger management, drug and alcohol testing, community service and more. On top of all that, if you are convicted of an assault your criminal record will only reflect a conviction for assault, it will not reflect the facts of the incident, so anyone reading the report, including future employers, will likely assume you beat someone up and will dismiss you without giving you a change to explain.
Our client has a great job where a conviction for criminal assault may not be tolerated, so it was imperative that the charge be dismissed.
Plymouth Lawyer
Once we had a copy of the evidence against us, including the police report, and video from the coffee shop, it was time to discuss the matter with the prosecuting attorney.
I wasn’t happy with the prosecutor’s offer and we could not agree on a resolution at the first pre trial. The initial offer was to plead as charged with a deferral, which wasn’t a bad offer, because ultimately the charge would be removed from our client’s record, but for a period of time it would still show up as a conviction for assault, so if his employer did a background check they would see an assault conviction for a period of time. Our client did not want to go to trial because he did not want to risk exposing himself to being found guilty. (The black letter law would mean that a jury would have to find him guilty.)
In order to put some pressure on the prosecuting attorney we set the matter for a trial management conference and submitted a compelling letter to the prosecutor’s office.
At the trial management conference it still took some more negotiating but ultimately the prosecutor agreed to reduce the charge to a disorderly conduct, one of the lowest level misdemeanors available (if not the lowest) under a delayed sentence. This result would mean that there would never be a single day where our client would have an assault conviction on his record. After 6 month even the disorderly conduct charge would be dismissed.
Our client will not have to report to probation, won’t have to drug or alcohol test, and maybe most importantly, he won’t do a day of jail or be marked as a criminal for the rest of his life. He paid a fine and left the courthouse.
If you have been charged with an assault and battery offense or any other offense in the 35th District Court contact Plymouth lawyer Aaron J. Boria at (734) 453-7806 or email him at borialaw@gmail.com
We fight for our clients and we get results. If the first offer isn’t good enough we try even harder to get our clients the results they deserve.
