DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND ASSAULT

As a Seattle domestic violence lawyer, I have noticed that when someone is arrested for domestic violence, the underlying offense is very often assault. Most assaults are charged as misdemeanors. There are 4 different types of assault under Washington State law. The type of assault that is charged as a misdemeanor is 4th degree assault. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree assaults are all felonies. In order to understand what 4th degree assault is, we have to know what the other kinds of assault are.

1st degree assault occurs when you INTENDED to inflict great bodily harm AND you used a deadly weapon or use actually did inflict great bodily harm. 2nd degree assault can be a number of things. Mainly, it is an assault where you did not use a deadly weapon and did not intend to inflict great bodily injury. If you cause great bodily injury to someone, it will most likely be charged as 2nd degree assault. Another important part of Washington State law is that strangulation is always charged as 2nd degree assault. The Washington State legislature commented that strangulation occurs frequently in domestic violence cases.

3rd degree assault is usually dependent on who you are accused of assaulting. 3rd degree assault includes assaulting bus drivers, police, officers, doctors, and nurses while they are performing job-related duties. Theoretically, if your wife is a nurse and you’re accused of assaulting her while she is working, you could be charged with domestic violence because the alleged victim is your spouse and the charge would be 3rd degree assault, a felony. I’ve never seen this happen before, but it’s possible. You could also be charged with 3rd degree assault if you negligently injure someone with a deadly weapon or negligently cause great pain to someone that lasts for a considerable time.

Finally, we get to 4th degree assault, the kind of assault that I see most frequently in domestic violence cases. Under Washington State law, 4th degree assault is all other assaults that do not fit under the categories of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree assaults. There is no statutory definition for the word, “assault” in the Washington criminal statutes, but the courts use the civil definition of assault and battery when they apply the criminal statutes. The civil definition of “battery” is any offensive or harmful touching. “Assault is either 1) an attempted battery or 2) intentionally putting another person in fear of immediate harm. If you do any of these things, you could potentially be charged with 4th degree assault.

Keep in mind that you can still be charged with assault, even if you did not touch another person, as long as you put them in fear of immediate harm or attempt to touch them in an offensive or harmful way. This would include something like raising your hand as if you were going to slap someone just to scare the other person. 4th degree assault is a gross misdemeanor, which means it is punishable by up to 1 year in jail. Assault charges are serious, especially the felony assault charges. Get help if you have been charged with domestic violence or assault.