"Assault and Battery"

Assault and battery are two separate crimes. Assault is when a person tries to injure another person. Battery is when the criminal actually injures another person. These terms are usually coupled together and used as one offense. A person can commit assault and not commit battery. Furthermore, a person cannot commit battery without assaulting the victim.

The Virginia law code states that when a "simple" assault and battery occurs, the criminal will be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. But when a person intentionally picks out another person because of his "race, religious conviction, color, or national origin," the penalty will be a minimum term of six (6) months and thirty (30) days in prison.

There are different types of assault. One form of assault is, "Assault with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon." When a criminal is charged with such a crime, the penalty received is a felony. A felony is defined as any sentence in which the criminal serves a minimum of a year in jail. A question that might arise is, "What is considered a 'Deadly or Dangerous Weapon'?" To this question, the response would be absolutely everything, if applied in any way that could be deadly to a person. A sock can be used as a deadly when if it is placed in a person's mouth and forces them to choke or cause other fatal wounds.

Another form of assault is sexual assault. This term, again, is coupled with the term sexual battery. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the prosecutor must show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused touched the private part of the victim, or that the victim was forced to touch the private parts of the accused, with the intent to "sexually molest, arouse or gratify any person."

Assault is a hard crime to prosecute because the lack of evidence the prosecutor has to prove that a crime of assault has occurred. Furthermore, when battery occurs, the prosecutor can show pictures of the wounds and scars that the injured victim had endured during the ordeal.