A charge that you may find yourself accused of in court is battery. While many people think of assault and battery as being directly related to each other, they are actually two separate charges. Assault is when somebody is threatened with violence, and battery is when someone is touched by another person. When dealing with the accusation of battery, it is important to know what the legal defenses for it are.
Self-Defense
A common defense to a battery charge is claiming that the action was due to self-defense. In order for this defense to work, you must be able to prove to the court that your actions were only because you were defending yourself from the other person and acting within reason. When using self-defense as your defense, you'll hear about reasonable action. It means that you were trying to neutralize violence by using violence and did not use excessive force.
For example, if you were holding somebody down that you thought was going to attack you, that would be considered reasonable force. If you responded by attacking the person with a weapon, there are a lot more variables that would need to be considered to determine whether that were reasonable force.
Consent
Consent is the most common defense when playing contact sports with other people. This is because the nature of some sports require you to get physical, and there is a chance that somebody can get injured in the process, such as breaking a bone in a game of football.
However, playing a sport doesn't automatically absolve you of any blame for an injury that occurs on the field. The situation in which the injury occurred will be heavily scrutinized, and if you were acting irresponsibly, it's possible that you could be charged with battery. For example, punching somebody in the face in a game of basketball would be completely intentional and treated no differently if it happened during the game or somewhere else.
Privilege
Your job may give you privilege concerning the battery charge you are being accused of. If you work a security job, it is expected that you may have to use force to remove somebody from private property. The key is using the appropriate amount of force for the situation, and that is what you will be judged on in court.
For help with any of these defenses, it is best to work with a criminal-defense attorney that can argue your defense in court.
