New Jersey Simple Assault Lawyers

Simple assault defined

An injury for the purposes of a simple assault offense must be “bodily injury”, and not mental, emotional, or psychological injury. A bodily injury includes physical pain, illness, or impairment. However, if the injury if serious enough to cause death or long term impairment or disfigurement, then the charge of simple assault could likely be escalated to a much greater offense known as aggravated assault.

Purpose and knowledge show intent to harm on part of the suspect, but it can also be determined that the act is reckless, which means that the individual accused of the simple assault knew that the act would cause another person injury, but did not care about the outcome. A person can also be charged with being negligent for not taking reasonable care that a particular act could harm a person.

A weapon can be of any kind, even if the original purpose of object is not intended as a weapon, such as a crow bar or broken bottle, is used during the assault which results in serious bodily injury to the victim it is considered a deadly weapon.