Inflicting Corporal Injury Penal Code §273.5

What is Domestic Violence Inflicting Corporal Injury under California Law?

Penal Code §273.5 defines Domestic Violence Inflicting Corporal Injury as “willfully inflict[ing] upon a person who is his or her spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, former cohabitant, or mother or father of his or her child, corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition.”

In order to be found guilty of Domestic Violence Inflicting Corporal Injury, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant:

Inflicted corporal injury (bodily) injury upon a current/ former spouse, a person with whom you live/used to live, or the mother/father of your child.
That you willfully, or intentionally, caused the injury.
That the injury resulted in a “traumatic condition.” (a traumatic condition is any visible injury)
What are the defenses to the charge of Domestic Violence Inflicting Corporal Injury?

PC 273.5 is a serious crime that often involves collateral consequences in one’s life such as the loss of employment, loss or denial of security clearance, loss or denial of a professional license, the ability to gain admission into a college or another schooling. The ability to own possess or use firearms. In fact under the Lautenberg amendment, a conviction of a domestic violence crime will disqualify you from possessing owning and using firearms and can result in being administratively discharged from the armed forces. Facing this charge can cause great anxiety and emotional distress. That’s why it’s vitally important to hire an experienced criminal defense attorney to defend you in such cases. Your attorney will employ one or more of the following defenses:

Pre-File Defense

In Domestic Violence cases, the line between the self-defense and assault may not be entirely clear. However, at the law office of Stephen R Brodsky, we prepare a very aggressive defense before the district attorney decided to file charges so that we can persuade the D.A. to reject your case. This is called the pre-file defense. In the event we are not able to persuade the D.A. to reject your case, we have already built a very strong and potent defense to seek either a dismissal of the charges or victory at trial.

Self-Defense/ Defense of Others

The legal defense of self- defense means that you can’t be found guilty of a violent crime that you committed in order to protect yourself as long as your conduct was reasonable under the circumstances.

You reasonably believed that you were in imminent danger of being killed, injured, or touched unlawfully,
You reasonably believed that you needed to use force to prevent that from happening, and
You used no more force than was necessary to prevent that from happening
False Accusation

There may be a possibility that you are being falsely accused of Domestic Violence Inflicting Corporal Injury. Perhaps the police or prosecutors are relying on misleading evidence. In this case, your defense lawyer will employ the services of a professional investigator to interview witnesses and investigate the false evidence on which the prosecution is relying to try to prove your guilt and prepare a highly skilled defense strategy that will protect you against an unjust prosecution.

My Criminal Defense has represented hundreds of people who have been falsely accused of domestic violence crimes. Our attorneys conduct a thorough investigation of the facts and have extensive experience handling such cases and when appropriate employ various experts to assist in the development of defense our attorneys can help defend your legal rights and protect you against wrongful and unjust prosecution. Please don’t try to be your own defense attorney. Contact the My Criminal Defense today to set up a FREE confidential consultation to protect your freedom and reputation against unjust prosecution!!