Simple Assault Dismissed & Expungement Order Same Day

Simple Assault Charges

We recently defended a client who had been charged and arrested for simple assault under 2C:12-1a after Union City police showed up to her residence on a call of alleged domestic violence. Upon arrival, the police were met by our client and she advised them that her and her fiance got into a heated argument after he arrived home. She explained that he had left earlier in the night to run some errands but that she had a feeling he was up to no good. At some point she found out that he had been drinking and suspected he was then driving around so she demanded that he come home immediately and then that is when the confrontation started.

After speaking with our client the police officers then decided to interview her fiance in order to better assess the situation. However, upon speaking with him they immediately noticed that he had redness to the left side of his face. When they asked what the redness was from he told them that his fiance had punched him with a closed fist to the eye after he arrived home with the car because he had been drinking. Based on the statements of both individuals and the physical evidence from the redness in the face, the police arrested and charged her with simple assault and served her with a mandatory court date in municipal court after she was processed and released.

The couple quickly made up after the fight and actually kept their wedding plans and were married shortly after the incident, which was before we appeared on our first court date. Like many couples they had their ups and downs and our client was a professional with no prior record who said things just escalated that night based on the stress of the wedding and some other factors going on. With this in mind we requested and the evidence the state planned to use against our client and quickly discovered that the police never got a statement from our client that she actually purposed punched the victim and there were no pictures of the injuries. Moreover, based on the fact that they had patched their relationship and were attending couples counseling, her now husband said that he did not want to testify against her and exercise his spousal privilege. Based on these facts, our simple assault lawyers successfully argued that the case should be dismissed, and the judge ordered the dismissal after hearing from both the defense and prosecutor.

State vs. M.C. decided November 6, 2017