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Originally Posted by markksman
You are a lawyer. I'm curious on your take with the misdeamor charge as opposed to felony assault.
I once got punched one time by a guy with zero provocation and it was felony assault and he ended up serving five years. I don't really know what the law is in Montana but do you think it was a judgment call in terms of going for the lesser charge? Seems with the witnesses and such there had to be room to potentially make a case for a felony.
I don't know what state you were in, but here is the assault statute in Montana:
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45-5-201. Assault. (1) A person commits the offense of assault if the person:
(a) purposely or knowingly causes bodily injury to another;
(b) negligently causes bodily injury to another with a weapon;
(c) purposely or knowingly makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with any individual; or
(d) purposely or knowingly causes reasonable apprehension of bodily injury in another.
(2) A person convicted of assault shall be fined not to exceed $500 or be imprisoned in the county jail for any term not to exceed 6 months, or both.
That seems appropriate for what he did, either under subsection a or c.
Here's the "aggravated assault" (felony) statute for Montana:
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45-5-202. Aggravated assault. (1) A person commits the offense of aggravated assault if the person purposely or knowingly causes serious bodily injury to another or purposely or knowingly, with the use of physical force or contact, causes reasonable apprehension of serious bodily injury or death in another.
(2) A person convicted of aggravated assault shall be imprisoned in the state prison for a term not to exceed 20 years and may be fined not more than $50,000, except as provided in 46-18-219 and 46-18-222.
Since there wasn't serious physical injury, or the threat of serious physical injury, you don't have aggravated assault. The charge seems proper to me. Granted I haven't read the entire Montana Penal Law (not my state) so I suppose there could be other felony statutes I'm missing, but misdemeanor assault would be the charge filed in my state (New York) for conduct like this.
Edit: Also, 5 years for a one punch assault in any state sounds ridiculous. Were there other aggravating factors? Were you seriously injured? Did the guy have a significant criminal record?