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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery (crime) | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(crime) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:21:39.666299+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== United States === In the United States, criminal battery, or simple battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact, including sexual contact. At common law, simple battery is a misdemeanor. The prosecutor must prove all three elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
an unlawful application of force to the person of another resulting in either bodily injury or offensive touching. The common-law elements serve as a basic template, but individual jurisdictions may alter them, and they may vary slightly from state to state. Under modern statutory schemes, battery is often divided into grades that determine the severity of punishment. For example:
Simple battery may include any form of non-consensual harmful or insulting contact, regardless of the injury caused. Criminal battery requires intent to inflict an injury on another. Sexual battery may be defined as non-consensual touching of the intimate parts of another. At least in Florida, "Sexual battery means oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or vaginal penetration of another by any other object": See section 794.011. Family-violence battery may be limited in its scope between persons within a certain degree of relationship: statutes for this offense have been enacted in response to increasing awareness of the problem of domestic violence. Aggravated battery generally is seen as a serious offense of felony grade. Aggravated battery charges may occur when a battery causes serious bodily injury or permanent disfigurement. As a successor to the common law crime of mayhem, this is sometimes subsumed in the definition of assault. In Florida, aggravated battery is the intentional infliction of great bodily harm and is a second-degree felony, whereas battery that unintentionally causes great bodily harm is considered a third-degree felony.
==== Kansas ==== In the state of Kansas, battery is defined as follows:
Battery. (a) Battery is: (1) Knowingly or recklessly causing bodily harm to another person; or (2) knowingly causing physical contact with another person when done in a rude, insulting, or angry manner.
==== Louisiana ==== The law on battery in Louisiana reads:
§ 33. Battery defined: Battery is the intentional use of force or violence upon the person of another; or the intentional administration of a poison or other noxious liquid or substance to another.
== Jurisdictional differences == In some jurisdictions, battery has recently been constructed to include directing bodily secretions (i.e., spitting) at another person without their permission. Some of those jurisdictions automatically elevate such a battery to the charge of aggravated battery. In some jurisdictions, the charge of criminal battery also requires evidence of a mental state (mens rea). The terminology used to refer to a particular offense can also vary by jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions, such as New York, refer to what, under the common-law, would-be battery as assault, and then use another term for the crime that would have been assault, such as menacing.
== Distinction between battery and assault == A typical overt behavior of an assault is Person A chasing Person B and swinging a fist toward their head. That for battery is A striking B. Battery requires:
a volitional act (that is the defendant was acting voluntarily), that results in physical (or in the US, "harmful or offensive") contact with another person, and is committed for the purpose of causing that contact, or, in the US, under circumstances that render such contact substantially certain to occur or with a reckless disregard as to whether such contact will result, or in England and Wales, reckless that it might occur (meaning that the defendant foresaw the risk of that contact and carried on unreasonably to take that risk). Assault, where rooted on English law, the act of intentionally causing a person to apprehend physical contact with their person. Elsewhere it is often similarly worded as the threat of violence to a person, while aggravated assault is the threat with the clear and present ability and willingness to carry it out. Aggravated battery is, typically, offensive touching without a tool or weapon, with attempt to harm or restrain.
== See also ==
Assault (tort) Assault occasioning actual bodily harm Battery (tort) The dictionary definition of beat up at Wiktionary Non-fatal offences against the person in English law Right of self-defense
== References ==