Simple Assault 101: A Guide to Understanding the Charges

Описание: Your 3 minute lawyer explains all you need to know about simple assault in Pennsylvania.

Transcription:

(0:00) I’m Enrique Latoison. This video is brought to you by Commentary Creations, your 3 minute lawyer. This is kind of a part 2 to the aggravated assault video.
(0:10) Now we are talking about simple assault. Simple assault is easy for the most part. It is a misdemeanor of the second degree. It is title 18 section 2701.
(0:20) Okay, so we are talking about simple assault. We discussed in the previous video, for aggravated assault, and I’m actually filming this the same day, I just took my jacket off to mix it up a little bit. But, in
(0:30) the first video we talked about serious bodily injury and bodily injury. Simple assault is much easier to understand in Pennsylvania because we are just dealing with bodily injury.
(0:40) First part of the statute deals with attempting to cause or you did cause bodily injury. So, using another example, I smack the hell out of somebody, I’m in a fight
(0:50) and I punch somebody, I kick someone in the head, I’m in a fight. It’s basically kind of your fight statute. It is a charge I see all the time.
(1:00) Especially in domestics, with women and men fighting each other, going both ways. Simple assault is a very common charge in Pennsylvania, misdemeanor second degree.
(1:10) Then what you have is, simple assault for trying to scare the mess out of someone, who is not a protected class like aggravated assault, but just a normal fellow walking down the street.
(1:20) If someone were to pull a gun out and point it at their face, scaring the living crap out of somebody, that also is simple assault, misdemeanor in the second degree.
(1:30) Then we also have something where you are dealing with a deadly weapon. Unlike aggravated assault where you are attempting to cause injury, we are dealing with negligent injury with a deadly weapon.
(1:40) So, now I have two knives, thanks to my assistants Kayla and Caileigh, but if I took these knives and started juggling them around because I wanted to be an idiot and accidently, the knife comes down
(1:50) and hits the person next to me in the leg, I negligently caused them bodily injury while using a deadly weapon, that’s also
(2:00) a misdemeanor in the second degree. Then we also have something that you hear often, you see this on TV all the time. Officers will ask someone, “Do you have a needle in your pocket? Do you have anything
(2:10) that will poke me?” and if you are wondering why they ask that question is because if that officer gets poked with a needle, of course it is very dangerous for that person, but it is also
(2:20) a simple assault for not disclosing that or allowing that needle to poke an officer. Then we get to my favorite part of the statute.
(2:30) Mutual Combat. So, in Pennsylvania, we have something that says mutual combat which sounds like some sort of gladiator-warrior situation,
(2:40) but in Pennsylvania, you are not allowed to fight each other. So, if you have two people that say I want to fight you and he says I want to fight you, and you say let’s go outside like Fight Club with Brad Pitt,
(2:50) and you go outside, and you start fighting each other, and the police come, believe it or not that is simple assault in Pennsylvania, but it is mutual combat, which is misdemeanor in the 3rd degree.
(3:00) instead of second degree. So, mutual combat is something that gets argued a lot if you think there is a situation where two people kind of agreed to fight each other but one called the police before
(3:10) the other one did and the other one got charged and the other one didn’t. So that is simple assault. Previous video is aggravated assault. Both under Title 18 in Pennsylvania.

Attributions:

Title: “Fight Club”
Author: 7th Street Theatre- S. Weidman https://www.flickr.com/photos/7thstre...
Source: Flickr https://flic.kr/p/RDQerM
License: CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Title: “"Ad Astra" Screening at National Geographic”
Author: NASA HQ PHOTO https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqp...
Source: Flickr https://flic.kr/p/2hgDzrR
License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...