Assault and Battery 2nd Degree

Assault and Battery 2nd Degree in South Carolina

Assault and battery 2nd degree requires that you caused or could have caused moderate bodily injury to another person.  Hi, my name is Dale Savage and I’m a criminal defense attorney here in Charleston, SC. Today we’re discussing about assault and battery 2nd degree charges and the type of harm required under the statute.

What’s the Law

To establish assault & battery 2nd degree the state must show that you:

  • Unlawfully injured another person or attempted to injure another person with the present ability to do so; and
    • You caused or could have caused moderate bodily injury to another; or
    • You touched someone’s private parts w/o consent, either under or above clothing
  • 0-3 yrs. up to $2,500 fine

Moderate Bodily Injury

As you can tell by the language of the statute it covers more than just someone physically hitting another person in anger.  Although that is still covered, the severity of the injury suffered by the victim, moderate bodily injury, and the type of touching is what enhances this charge from Assault & battery 3rd degree.

Moderate bodily injury means:

  • loss of consciousness;
  • Disfigurement;
  • Temporary loss of a bodily member or organ;
  • Injury that requires local or general anesthesia;
  • Fractures and dislocations.

Defenses

There are a number of defenses to these types of charges such as self-defense and more often misidentification meaning someone else did it.

Identification

Good defense attorneys know that Identification is often a key point of defense in these cases for a number of reasons.  Many times, the parties involved in the incident do not know each other and never met, there can be many people involved in a physical confrontation and deciding who actually landed the punch causing the injury can be difficult to determine.  If a person does lose consciousness, unfortunately this can affect their ability to accurately remember the details of what happened and who did it.  Exploring these options is vital if your defending these charges.

Charleston, SC Criminal Defense Attorney

If have been charged with Assault and battery 2nd degree and want to discuss your options, please call me at (843) 530-7813.  I hope this video was helpful and thanks for watching.

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