Assault and Battery

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In most states, an assault/battery is committed when one person 1) tries to or does physically strike another, or 2) acts in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm. Many states declare that a more serious or "aggravated" assault/battery occurs when one 1) tries to or does cause severe injury to another, or 2) causes injury through use of a deadly weapon. Historically, laws treated the threat of physical injury as "assault", and the completed act of physical contact or offensive touching as "battery," but many states no longer differentiate between the two.

What is the difference between assault and battery?
If the victim has been actually touched by the person committing the crime, then battery has occurred. If the victim has not actually been touched, but only threatened, then the crime is considered to be assault.

assault and battery
Related but distinct crimes. Battery is the unlawful application of physical force to another; assault is an attempt to commit battery or an act that may reasonably cause fear of imminent battery. With manslaughter and murder (see homicide), these concepts are articulated to protect against rude and undesired physical contact or the threat of it. Battery requires no minimum degree of force, nor does it need to be applied directly; administering poison and transmitting a disease may both be battery. Accidents and ordinary negligence are not, nor is reasonable force used in the performance of duty (e.g., by a police officer).

Assault and Battery

Two separate offenses against the person that when used in one expression may be defined as any unlawful and not permitted touching of another. Assault is an act that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent, harmful, or offensive contact. The act consists of a threat of harm accompanied by an apparent, present ability to carry out the threat. Battery is a harmful or offensive touching of another

The main distinction between the two offenses is the existence or nonexistence of a touching or contact. While contact is an essential element of battery, there must be an absence of contact for assault. Sometimes assault is defined loosely to include battery.

Assault and battery are offenses in both criminal and tort law and, therefore, they can give rise to criminal or civil liability. In criminal law, an assault may additionally be defined as any attempt to commit a battery.

At common law, both offenses were misdemeanors. Today, under virtually all criminal codes, they are either misdemeanors or felonies. They are characterized as ...