Legal Question in Criminal Law in Missouri

Re: assault

You are charged with a crime and if you are convicted you will have a conviction on your record which may very well cause you much more harm in many ways later in life. Most job applications, loan applications, school applications, etc. ask the applicant if he or she has ever been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony. If you are convicted and then answer truthfully any such application, the odds are that you will not get whatever it is you are applying for. And, if you lie, it is very easy to run your record and find out that you are lying. It would be extremely foolish for you to go into court without an attorney. A criminal defense attorney may be able to "beat" the charge, or at least negotiate a plea bargain which will avoid you having to take a conviction. By the way, I have been handling criminal cases for over twenty-four years, and I have heard just about everything. But I never heard of someone "discarding" two pieces of pie and the pie plate they came in at a red light. If I don't buy it, what makes you think a prosecutor, a judge, or a jury would? Hire an attorney.

Re: assault

I agree with Mr. Nack. You should not take this too lightly. An attorney may be able to assist you in making this go away. The other motorist can file the charge, but it is up to the prosecutor to decide to go forward with it.

What you have described sounds like you may have violated a no-littering ordinance at least. As to the assult, the facts you have described sound like a law school hypothetical. In that I mean it could go either way as to whether you committed assault, depending on the specific facts.

Your situation sounds comical though. For that reason, you stand the chance that the record of your conviction (whcih would be a public record) getting picked up by a newspaper needing extra copy to fill space, and possibly on TV. I can almost hear Jay Leno making a joke about it.

I do not mean to make light of your situation. However, I do want to be sure you understand how a little misunderstaning like whether you intended to hit someone with a pie, can cause you great harm, such as I and Mr. Nack have described. If your case is near Kansas City, I would be interested in discussing it with you further.

Good Luck,

Tony Smith