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-I'm Darrell York.
I'm a 24 year retired police officer.
And I do criminal defense work.
In California, a battery is harmful or offensive touching
of another.
It could be the slightest touching.
If the other person considered it as harmful or offensive,
that constitutes a battery.
If you spit on somebody, that's a battery.
If you throw a drink on somebody, that can be
considered a battery.
There are defenses that can be utilized in a battery charge.
Self-defense is one.
If somebody is about to hit you and you believe that
you're going to be hit, you have a
right to defend yourself.
And the other one is an accident.
Oh, I didn't mean to touch you.
I just bumped into to you by accident.
That's a defense.
The other one is maybe it didn't happen at all.
You've got the wrong person.
You're in a big crowd.
I'm not the one who hit you.
It was this other guy.
So these are defenses that are available to those who are
charged with battery.
Between the three defenses, the self-defense, the
accident, or it never happened, we've gotten good
results for our clients.
We've gotten these cases dismissed or at least reduced
to a lesser charge, which is a disturbance of the peace.
If you're arrested or charged for battery I think it's
extremely important that you fight your case.
A battery conviction does not look good on your record.
If an employer gets your background and sees you've
been convicted of a battery, he's going to
think you're a hothead.
You may be a liability.
He doesn't want somebody in the workplace that is going to
go around and slug his other employees and
potentially be sued.
So you need to hire a counsel and you need
to fight that charge.