Fairfax County Assault on a Police Officer
Under state law, any assault and/or assault and battery on a Police Officer is a Class 6 felony. It is punishable by a sentence of up to 5 years in jail. However, unlike other class 5 felonies there is mandatory minimum of 6 months in jail. That means that the judge or jury will have no discretion if they find you guilty of the charge you will have to do at least 6 months.
Assaults come in a wide range of forms and can present many different issues and opportunities for the defense. Obviously, they will almost always involve law enforcement in some way, rather it is a cop, probation officer, or other individual. That will play a major role in the resolution of the case.
The arrest must be for a lawful reason. The law allows a person to resist an unlawful arrest, provided the force used is appropriate. Any arrest requires the officer to have either an arrest warrant or probable cause. A showing that the arrest was without sufficient probable cause may be the difference between having your case thrown out and spending six months in jail.
So for example, lets say Officer A is on patrol and decides to Arrest Suspect B. During that arrest suspect B becomes unruly and punches the officer in the face. The officer then tases him, arrests him and takes him to jail. At the jail the suspect is charged with Assault on a Police Officer. At trial, the suspect may be able to challenge the reason for the underlying arrest. So lets say that the Officer says that he was arresting the suspect for driving on suspended. However, the facts come out that the officer didn’t have a valid reason to believe the suspect’s license was actually suspended. In that circumstance, the actual assault will largely become irrelevant. Because the initial arrest was invalid and illegal, the suspect had a right to resist. The law views it almost as though the officer was committing a kidnapping. In both cases, the right of self defense protects the suspect. So in every Assault on a Police Officer case it is important to know why the person was under arrest to begin with.
This area of law is actually very complicated and far too in depth to fully explore on a website. For example, there are times where if the officer made an honest mistake or if the person was merely being detained and not arrested, this right to resist an unlawful arrest will not apply. However, it is important to any analysis of the strength or weakness of an APO case to determine if the underlying interaction by the police was lawful and whether a self-defense claim may be appropriate.
