Reply #44: I served on a jury where the charges were assault and battery [View All]

[caraher]

It was a silly case, really - a guy gets mad at the manager at a pizza place, drives over in his bathrobe and from here the stories diverge. The prosecution alleged that the guy tossed the pizza at the manager, then grabbed the manager's collar and drew back his fist as if he were about to throw a punch.

In our instructions, the judge made it clear that under the law, if we found that the pizza was indeed thrown at the manager it would constitute assault and, if it hit him, battery. (This was independent of the more serious part of the charges; had we determined that the defendant neither grabbed the manager nor made a gesture threatening to punch him, we could still convict on the basis of what the defendant did with the pizza!)

The point is, legally, many seemingly minor things can be instances of assault and/or battery.