Criminal Defense for Aggravated and Simple Assault in Georgia
Augusta GA Assault Defense Lawyer
Aggravated assault can be defined as assaulting another person with a deadly weapon, with intent to cause harm (murder, rape, rob) as also fire at people from a moving vehicle. Aggravated assault is a felony crime and in Georgia you could receive a sentence ranging from 1 to 20 years. If you are convicted fro family violence aggravated assault, you can expect a sentence ranging from 3 to 20 years.
Assaults are classified into two: simple assaults and aggravated assaults. The classification if assaults are based on factors like:
• Type of weapon used to cause harm.
• Severity and seriousness of injury caused.
• Intent of assailant.
Mostly, the weapon or extent of injury is used to distinguish simple assaults from aggravated assaults. For the occurrence of an assault it is not necessary fro a person to harm another, all that is required is intent to cause harm. Sometimes the force used can be offensive to another person and his dignity, thus an assault can be even a pinch or a shove.
Aggravated assault should compulsorily involve a weapon, personal ones like hands, feet, teeth, fist, etc or other kinds like knives, guns etc. The injury caused due to assault must be very serious for assault to be classified as aggravated.
These include:
• Wounds
• Maims
• Disfigurement
• Endangering of life.
Simple assaults, on the other hand do not involve use of knife, cutting instrument or any other kind of dangerous weapon and the victim must not have sustained serious injuries. But for both simple assault as well as aggravated assault, intention to cause harm must be present to prove assault. It is not assault if during an epileptic seizure you hit others.
Simple assault thus are crimes due to culpable negligence, coercion, intimidation etc and sometimes even disorderly conduct, affray and domestic violence are also classified under simple assault. The application of force distinguishes, simple assault, assault with weapons and aggravated assaults from each other. Classification of aggravated assault is tricky and complicated. In a group assault where aggressors and victims cannot be distinguished, number of people assaulted is taken as number of offenses. In this case, simple assaults and aggravated assaults have to be segregated and reported by the police.
The conviction for a criminal offense like assault is decided by the following factors:
• Nature and severity of crime.
• Criminal record and history of defendant.
• Personal state of affairs of defendant.
• Degree of remorse felt by defendant.
Any unlawful attack on one person by another person, done with intent to cause harm is assault and if the assault results in sever injuries, it transforms into aggravated assault. In aggravated assault, use of force should be intentional. Accidentally hitting a person is not assault.