The Difference Between An Assault and Battery And A Domestic Is, Well, They’re Both Misdemeanors For Your First One.
Video Transcribed: Tahlequah Criminal Attorney Ryan Cannonie with the Wirth Law Tahlequah office, and I want to talk to you a little bit about domestic assault and battery today. So, domestic assault and battery is different than a regular assault and battery in that while they have the same acts, it’s one person hitting or striking, pushing, some type of contact with another person, a domestic assault and battery has another step to it, which is a relationship.
You have to have some type of relationship with the person, whether that is a current or former boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, you have a kid together, you live in the same household or used to live in the same household, these are categories that make that relationship special when it comes to the law.
So, the difference between an assault and battery and a domestic is, well, they’re both misdemeanors for your first one. Assault and battery is assault and battery is assault and battery. No matter how many of them you get, it’s still going to be a misdemeanor.
The only thing that could change is if you keep getting them, the prosecutor’s probably going to get a little mad and you might actually be doing the punishment, which is 90 days in the county jail.
A domestic is different in that first off, it has up to a year in county jail as punishment, but after you get a first one, if you take any plea, whether that’s a conviction or the prosecutor says, “Hey, this is a deferred. It doesn’t even go on your record, you can get it expunged after six months or a year.”
Even if you take that, a second domestic charge within 10 years is going to be a felony, and it carries years in DOC. And it also, like I said, it could make you a convicted felon, and so it really is important to have an attorney look over your case.
Most of the time, domestics, as a prosecutor, it’s one of those types of charges where either we were going to go full steam ahead, we wanted to see someone do some time, or it was the victim coming in and saying they wanted the person to have some type of treatment or counseling, and so a lot of those were kind of where it fell. Based on what the victim wanted, determined a lot of time what I did as a prosecutor.
Now, when you’re looking at a charge like a domestic, even a really good plea offer or something that sounds really good may not be the best thing for you. If, as your attorney, I go in and I start looking through the evidence and say, “Yeah, this is only a three month deferred, but I think we can get it dismissed.”
That’s much better than doing probation of three months, and then for the next 10 years watching over your shoulder that you’re not accused of it again and get a felony. So if you have this situation, if you find yourself where you’ve been accused of a domestic violence situation, and you want representation that’s not just going to assume you did it and start trying to take whatever the first plea offer is, then please, give us a call.
