Assault and Battery
Assault and Battery, and Crimes against Persons
Assault and battery is an intentional attempt by someone to injure someone else which may include threats or a threatening behaviour. Writers who offer criminal law assignment help at Edudorm essay writing service notes that the intentional attempt may be by use of force or violence to harm someone else. Battery can be defined as intentionally offending or harming by way of touching another person without consent. Assault and battery are considered criminal offences when there exist laws that regulate and prevent the behaviour (Statsky, 2012).
Similarities and differences between crime of assault and crime of battery
The crime of assault and battery are similar in that they both require strict proof, and the proof must show that there is a violation of a certain law and they ascribe to the law of tort (Statsky,2012).
Differences between Assault and Battery
According to the Acts in difference states of America, the general requirement of a criminal assault and battery needs a direct or overt action that would make the reasonable person to fear for his or her safety. An act cannot be qualified to be an assault and battery based on spoken words alone, but only if the offender backs up the words with action that will make the victim reasonably fear an imminent harm. Experts who offer constitutional law assignment help at Edudorm essay writing service indicates that thus in assault and battery crime, the offender need only to have a general intent. So if the actions of an individual are such that they are considered to be dangerous to another person , that is enough support for assault charges, even if the intention was not a specific harm. In addition, an intention to scare another person is enough to press assault and battery charges. An assault can happen if a person threatens to beat so another person and the victim has reason to fear bodily harm arising from the threat (Statsky, 2012).
On the other hand the general requirement of battery crime is not an intent to harm, but the offender need to only have intentional contact or intentionally contact the victim. More over if a person’s actions are criminally careless or negligent such that they result to contact, they may termed as assault crime (Statsky, 2012). As such, bumping into someone accidentally would not add up to battery regardless of how offensive the victim consider it to be. The criminal act touching on battery assault is based on harmful or offensive contact.
Assault and Battery in Maryland
In the state of Maryland, an assault and battery crime, called second degree assault is a crime which occurs after a person offensively makes physical contact with another, attempts to offensively make physical contact with someone else or frighten them intentionally (Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law § 3-20. Authors who offer law assignment help services at Edudorm essay writing service points that in this state the crime of battery is occurs if the offender makes an unwanted contact with another person physically, attempts the battery or places the victim in fear of battery. The act which is prohibited is thus physical contact or attempting the contact (Paul, 2013). The act of the defendant should be intentional or careless. The actions of the man can be termed as an assault on this basis. The actions involved intentional physical contact and he the intention is evident in his particular act of stripping A’s cloths.
Part 3
The scenario would change from assault to consensual touching if the man did not hit A, but agreed to accompany the man to his place where the act of stripping occurred with no use of force. This means that there was no unwanted contact nor the intention to cause harm to A.
Part 4
False imprisonment crime is termed as a felony and a tort. It refers to the detention of an individual within a bounded area without that persons consent or any justification. It can be done by either privately or by the government. The imposition of the detention can be done through physical barriers or unreasonable duress on a person whose liberty is violated by the offender. The general principles applied to false imprisonment as both crime or tort are similar. The only difference is that the common laws of criminal jurisprudence are applied in prosecution of false imprisonment. Tutors who offer law essay help at Edudorm essay writing service acknowledges that an offence of false imprisonment can be proved by a threat to arrest, use of force and a personal belief that there will be a violation of their liberty. In the above case, the court would have no legal ground for convicting the man so as to punish him. The reason being that there was no false imprisonment and the man had not forcefully stripped A (Finz, 2004).
Difference between false improvement crime and kidnapping.
Kidnapping involve transporting and detaining a person intentionally without their consent by use of force or threat and without any legal authority. The main difference between criminally imprisoning a person and kidnapping is the transportation requirement. If the victim has been moved to a confined place by the defendant, there is not act of kidnapping. In the act of false improvement, there is no requirement for application of force or intimidation. Kidnapping on the other hand consist of intentionally moving or taking away someone while using force or threat to use force.
Part 5
The offense kidnapping is more heinous than false imprisonment since it involves use of force to detain someone and is usually accompanied with violence. In most jurisdictions, false imprisonment is regarded as a felonious restraint and it is a kidnapping offence which is less included. Coaches who offer law dissertation writing help at Edudorm essay writing service recognizes that this implies that false imprisonment crime is lacking some elements of kidnapping and thus it is regarded to be of lower grade than kidnapping. At times false imprisonment acts as defence to kidnapping partially since it has less sentencing options that are serious. The kidnapping offence is graded by Model Penal code as first or second degree of felony (Model Penal Code § 212.1). However, the grading can be lowered if the victim is released by the defendant unharmed and in a safe place (Jocelyn & Pollock, 2012).
Part 6
The actions of A that involved her attacking the man with a rock to free herself do not warrant the attacker to take any legal action. The victim is not criminally liable for any injuries that may have been sustained by the defendant. According to Criminal Code (ss.34-37) self-defence can be used as a defence to a charge following assault which allows a victim to use force out of necessity and to such level that will be reasonable to stop the assault (Jocelyn,2012). As such, A had reasonable ground for applying as much force as possible to stop the assault.
The court should punish the man with battery because his actions were clearly intended and he applied force to strike A. For a crime of battery requires the offender to have had intentional contact with the victim and the victim had reasonable basis to fear bodily harm.
References
Statsky, W. P. (2012). Essentials of torts. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar. 39-49
Finz, S. R. (2004). The Finz multistate method. New York, N.Y: Aspen Publishers.1. 345
Jocelyn, Pollock (2012) .Criminal Law. John C. Klotter justice administration legal series:Routledge.196-198
Paul, R (2013). Intuitions of Justice and the Utility of Desert. EBSCO ebook academic collection.198-120
