Legal Question in Criminal Law in North Carolina

Re: assault

I am going to give you a non-state-specific response since you only got a law firm solicitation from the other attorney.

Assault is defined as "[t]he threat or use of force on another that causes that person to have reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact; the act of putting another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of an immediate battery..." (Black's Law Dictionary, Second Ed., West Group (2001)). Assault does not require actual contact - that would be battery.

Assault with a deadly weapon is "[a]n aggravated assault in which the defendant, using a deadly weapon, threatens the victim with death or serious bodily injury." Id.

Defending oneself is a DEFENSE to a charge of assault. In other words, a defendant charged with assault admits that he did commit assault, but his defense is that he was justified in doing so because he was defending himself. However, one cannot use greater force than is necessary to defend oneself. For example, I would probably not be justified in threatening or using deadly force to defend myself against an unarmed 80 year old woman who was smacking me with her purse. But, I might be justified in threatening to restrain her from hitting me (assault) or actually restraining her from hitting me (battery).

Any such case would be very factually driven. The facts would then have to be applied to NC law (or the jurisdiction where the charges were filed).

If this is more than a hypothetical, and you need to defend against an aggravated assault charge, I STRONGLY suggest you retain a criminal defense attorney in the appropriate jurisdiction.

Good luck to you.