Chapter 22 of the Texas Penal Code is entitled, “Assaultive Offenses”. In Collin County, Texas, you can be charged with an assaultive offense for a variety of reasons ranging from offensively bumping into a stranger at the mall to hitting your uncle when he mouths off something inappropriate to you at a family get together. Assault arrests in Collin County, Tx can involve a stranger, friend, police officer, elderly person, security guard, acquaintance, girlfriend, boyfriend, mom, dad, sister, brother, cousin or any other family member or person. The lowest level of assault charge that you can be arrested for in Collin County, Tx is a class C misdemeanor and then assault charges go all the way up to a first-degree felony.
Definition of AssaultA person commits assault if the person intentionally, knowingly or recklessly, causes bodily to another; intentionally or knowingly threatens another with imminent bodily injury; or intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another person when the person knows or should reasonably believe the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative. This portion of Chapter 22 covers class C assault and class A assault but Chapter 22 goes on to list many other types of assault charges a Collin County, Tx resident can possibly face. Criminal assault charges escalate in severity to a felony when the alleged assault involves a weapon, repeated assaults on a family member, assault on a public servant, serious bodily injury, an elderly person or choking a family member.
Mens Rea and DefinitionsIn every Collin County assault case in Texas, you must analyze mens rea, the legal term for your state of mind at the time of the alleged offense. Bumping into someone on the street or hitting someone on the arm or telling someone, “I’m going to punch you in the face”, doesn’t automatically mean you committed assault. The law looks at your intentions. So, if you jokingly tell your buddy you are going to punch them in the face that is not assault, or if you accidentally hit someone in the arm that is not assault. You must commit the assaultive act intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence.
Each type of assault charge includes definitions that are found in a dictionary or in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure:
Provocative in the dictionary means causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction. injuries or physical harm.
Offensive in the dictionary means causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset or angry.
The Texas Penal Code says a person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.
The Texas Penal Code says a person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to circumstances surrounding his conduct when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or that the circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
The Texas Penal Code says a person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
Class C and Class A Misdemeanor Assault for Assault Family ViolenceThe minimal type of assault is when a part of your body contacts with part of another’s person’s body and causes the other person to feel offended. This is called assault by contact. This type of assault is a class C ticket and will land you with a court date in the municipal court in the city in which you were ticketed. A class C assault is like getting a traffic ticket, but instead of speeding, you just allegedly touched someone in a manner they claimed was offensive.
You can also get class C assault ticket if you threaten to assault someone. If I tell my co-worker, “I am going to punch you in the face”, in a way that causes the coworker to believe I will actually do it, I could get a class C ticket if that coworker reports this to a police officer. The threat must be imminent meaning the person feels your threat is about to happen.
The next level of assault which is a class A misdemeanor. A class A misdemeanor assault is different than a class C ticket because the person you allegedly assaulted is saying that the contact you caused with them caused them bodily injury or pain, rather than just being offended. So, let’s say you are walking down the street, and you bump into someone on purpose, and the person says you offended them. That will be a class C ticket for assault by contact. But let’s say the person who you bumped into on purpose says you caused them pain, that will be a Class A misdemeanor for assault bodily injury. Even when no actual bodily injury exists, the law says just feeling pain is enough to satisfy the element of bodily injury. Now, let’s say you are standing line to buy groceries and someone cuts in front of you and you say I will punch you in the face, and they feel that you seemed upset enough to do it right them on the spot, that is a class C ticket for assault by threat. You will face a class A misdemeanor if you intentionally or knowingly cause offensive contact or threaten bodily injury to an elderly individual or disabled individual.
The penalties for assault in Texas can be harsh, depending on the level of the charge. Class C assault tickets carry a fine of up to $500.00 and you can be placed on deferred adjudication for 90 to 180 days. Once you are discharged from the deferred adjudication you can get the case expunged from your record which will delete the reporting of the ticket on your criminal history.
If you are charged with class A assault, you face a fine up to $4000.00 and 2 years deferred adjudication or probation or 1 year in jail. Even with a deferred adjudication offer you have to plead guilty so you not be eligible for an expunction….ever. You will be eligible to get a non-disclosure which partially hides this case from your criminal record, but not completely like an expunction.
When it comes to class A assaults, you need to make sure your attorney knows exactly what they are doing in their work on this type of case because you do not want to plead guilty to an assault unless this is the only last option after the lawyer has used every tool in their belt. These are complicated issues to face, and you will need a Collin County criminal lawyer like Casey Davis, located in Plano, Tx, to help you decide what to do.
Class B Misdemeanor for AssaultThis is a very random section of Chapter 22 and very rare. You will face a class B misdemeanor if you intentionally or knowingly cause offensive contact or threaten bodily injury to a sports participant when you a spectator, not part of the sport.
Domestic Violence or Family ViolenceIf you commit an offense on a family member like upon a wife, husband, sister, brother, father, mother or child, then you will get family violence added to your assault charge. Family violence is a completely different analysis because the ramifications of family violence being added to your charge can be life ruining and these cases must be treated very differently than an assault charge with no family violence finding. That said, assaultive charges in Collin County need to be carefully handled as well. The analysis on the two cases is just very different as Casey Davis, criminal defense lawyer in Plano, Tx, works her way through an assault case.
Felony AssaultFelonies start of as a state jail felony at the lowest level. Texas has no state jail felony for assault. Felony assaults start as a third degree, then progress to a second degree and then a first degree. Within each of these classes the felony or misdemeanors can be enhanced the next level up if you have prior criminal history or prior assault history on your record.
Collin County, TX, criminal assault charges escalate in severity to a felony when the alleged assault involves a weapon, repeated assaults on a family member, assault on a public servant, serious bodily injury, an elderly person, or choking a family member.
Third-Degree Felony AssaultsYou can be charged with third-degree felony assault if the victim fits into various classifications. This type of assault will be charged if the victim of an assault is a household member, family member, public servant, government contractor for family services, security officer, or emergency services personnel. Third degree felony assaults include continuous assault family violence, assault impeding airway family violence, assault on hospital personnel, assault of a public servant. For a third-degree felony assault charge, you may be looking at up to 10 years in prison and a maximum of $10,000 in fines.
You will face a third-degree felony assault charge if you commit an assault upon a public servant, and the public servant says they felt pain. The public servant saying they felt pain is what makes it a class A misdemeanor then enhanced to a 3rd degree felony because this pain was caused by you while they were on duty. If you just threaten the public servant or cause the public servant to feel offended by your touch, you will just get a class C ticket.
You can be charged with third-degree felony assault if the victim fits into various classifications. This type of assault will be charged if the victim of an assault is a household member, family member, public servant, government contractor for family services, security officer, or emergency services personnel. Third degree felony assaults in Collin County, Tx include continuous assault family violence, assault impeding airway family violence, assault on hospital personnel, or assault of a police officer.
You will face a third-degree felony assault charge if you intentionally, knowingly or recklessly impede the normal breathing or circulation of the blood of a person that is a household member, a person you are or have dated, or a family member by applying pressure to that person’s throat or neck or by blocking that person’s nose or mouth.
You will face a third-degree felony assault charge if you intentionally, knowingly or recklessly or cause pain or bodily injury to a person that is a clerk, prosecuting attorney, jail staff, anyone working in the “system” or contracted to work in the “system”, emergency service or hospital personnel like an EMT, paramedic, nurse, doctor or a clerk, a process server, a pregnant woman, a security guard or any person working at civil commitment facility.
There are other alleged crimes in this statute than can escalate your situation to a third-degree felony as well including alleged child abuse or neglect, sexual assault, indecent assault, stalking, smuggling or trafficking.
Second-Degree and First-Degree Felony AssaultsIf you use or exhibit a deadly weapon during a class C assault by threat or class A assault bodily injury, or pain you will face a second-degree felony. This is called aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. You can be charged with a second-degree felony if you used a deadly weapon to assault someone, or if you inflicted serious bodily harm on a victim. You also could be charged with second-degree felony assault if you attacked a date or a family member for a second time after getting convicted of third-degree assault. The sentence may be up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
First degree felonies carry a punishment range of five years in prison to a life sentence, plus a fine of $10,000. You can also serve your punishment through deferred adjudication or probation, but the exposure to prison is always a possibility if you do not comply property with the terms of your probation. Getting to a first degree under the assault statutes is not easy and police get this wrong a lot of the time. I have lost track of how many times I have been hired on a “first degree felony assault” case and as I sit and listen to my client or the alleged victim tell what happened, I am thinking how did this officer find this to be a first degree?
So, I pull out the code and study it and realize they have charged it wrong. So, I notify the detective and the state that they have the case charged wrong as a first degree and they tell me I am wrong! Generally, to address this I will sit at my desk and brief out the second degree and first-degree statutes and send to them via email and ask them to correct their charge. Sometimes it can take months for the state to correct the charge, but ultimately, they do. This is one precise reason why you need a Collin County criminal lawyer like Casey Davis in Plano, TX because she understands these fine nuances in the law and knows how to fix problems in your case.
To reach a first-degree felony under the assault statute you will have to have an extensive conviction history related to assaultive or family violence assaultive offenses or other criminal history. Otherwise, you will need to assault a person who qualifies as a “family member”, using a deadly weapon and cause serious bodily injury OR assault any person and a traumatic brain or spine injury that results in a persistent vegetative state or irreversible paralysis. That deadly weapon can be your hand if your hand causes these injuries.
Outside of these scenarios the assault will be classified as a second-degree felony. In Collin County, Tx. You can drive down the road and shoot a “family member” or other person with a gun out of your car window hit them with the bullet, and it the wound is not a serious bodily injury, this is a second degree. Now, if you do this act and it causes serious bodily injury to the “family member” or traumatic brain or spine injury that results in a persistent vegetative state or irreversible paralysis to any person, that is a first-degree felony.
Serious bodily injury is defined by the Texas Penal Code as an injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.
You will face a first-degree felony if you intentionally, knowingly or recklessly cause pain to a person by shooting out of a motor vehicle in the direction of a habitation, building, or vehicle, being reckless about whether that habitation, building or vehicle is occupied and causes serious bodily injury to any person.
You will face a first-degree felony if you use or exhibit a deadly weapon during the time you are intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing pain to a person or during the time you are intentionally or knowingly threatening imminent bodily injury to a person you know is a public servant, judge, security officer, witness police officer or process server.
A police officer will face a first-degree felony if they commit aggravated assault deadly weapon while on duty.
You can be charged with first-degree assault if you attack a witness in a criminal case or a security officer. You can face anywhere from five years in prison to a life sentence, plus a fine of $10,000.
The Assault Family Violence Sections of Chapter 22You will face a third-degree felony assault charge if you intentionally, knowingly or recklessly cause pain to a person that is a household member, a person you are or have dated, or a family member and you have been previously convicted of this same crime. You also must be careful because once arrested you are on conditions of bond and will have an emergency protective order against you and these documents tell you about the rules by which you must abide while you are out of jail on bond. If you violate these rules once it is a misdemeanor but violate the rules more than once and it is a third-degree felony. If the person you allegedly assaulted is mentally unstable or vindictive they can cause you trouble in this area by enticing you to come around them and then report you to the police and then you will have another arrest and be back in jail.
It is tricky when you dealing with this area of the law because the legislature has allowed the prosecution to allow even a deferred adjudication plea to be used against you under this part of the law. This is why it cannot be stressed enough that if you are arrested for any part of this statute, you really need to hire a criminal lawyer in Collin County, TX who has experience in dealing with all assault scenarios. Attorney Casey Davis in Plano, TX handles assault and assault family violence cases under this statute every day in Collin County and she knows how to help you navigate this arrest to protect your future.
Defenses to AssaultSometimes people get arrested for assault but should never plead guilty. There are circumstances that raise reasonable doubt that you committed assault such as self-defense or an alleged victim who lied. When you are dealing with a fight between to strangers, co-workers, friends, family members or romantic partners a person may be arrested for assault when really all that occurred was mutual combat. Sometimes you may have an officer who makes an arrest for assault when they know that no assault occurred. There are some random nuances in the Texas penal code section 9.34, where you can be justified in using force to stop somebody else from committing suicide or inflicting serious bodily injury on himself. You can also be justified in using force against someone if it is immediately critical to save another person's life in an emergency.
Hire an Experienced Attorney to Fight Your ChargesThese types of criminal cases should be handled by a privately retained attorney who has built a career on defending these specific types of situations.
Being arrested for an assault or an assault family violence charge takes an enormous toll on a person. It can weigh them down emotionally and cause an amount of stress they never knew possible. I am an attorney and counselor at law and when I encounter an individual facing this charge my goals are two parts: I work to help them mitigate a possibly wrongful assault charge and help them find ways to cope with the stress that has landed upon them. After 20 years of meticulously working through assault cases, my skill set in this area is strong.
Assault convictions can result in a wide range of penalties. If you are charged with assault in Texas, you should consult an experienced criminal defense lawyer. Casey Davis gets outstanding case results, and she will get involved in fighting the charge at the outset of the process. She represents people in Plano, Texas and all other cities in Collin County, Texas. Call us at 972-715-1929 or contact us via our online form to set up an appointment with an assault criminal lawyer in the Plano area.