What Are The Penalties For An Aggravated Assault Conviction In Texas?

In Texas, an aggravated assault charge is a secondary felony if there isn’t serious bodily injury. If there is serious bodily injury, the charge can be increased to a first-degree felony charge. The aggravated nature of it would be the weapon portion. I’ve had clients where they were allegedly charged with aggravated assault by just using their hands. But, the damage that was done to the person was so severe that they assume that a brick or something else was used. I have seen cases where no weapon was used. They alleged that it was aggravated assault because of the bodily injury that resulted.

Are There Any Alternative Programs Available For First Time Assault Offenders?

There are alternative programs available for first time assault offenders. In Texas, there’s deferred adjudication. Whether or not you can get deferred adjudication, it means that there would not be a final conviction if the person completes the program. However, if a charge is aggravated or if it’s an assault family violence, they cannot get it sealed, and so that doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference. Legally speaking, it’s going to be there, and you can’t get it removed. But there is deferred adjudication on every offense, not including the FBI in the state of Texas. And so, it is available, but the mechanisms of whether someone wants to get it in a record differs for every county. It is different with how they approach it, and it depends on the county, how serious the case is, and if the other person is on board with prosecuting or not.

There is a myriad of options available, but often, the case with the type of charge diversion programs are available because most courts don’t want someone to reoffend. It’s not always the case, and certainly not a promise.

If An Alleged Victim Recants Allegations Of Assault, Is The Case Automatically Dropped?

If an alleged victim recants allegations of assault, the case does not automatically get dropped. That is a very common myth. People routinely call my office and I generally tell them that it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it only matters what the state can prove. Sometimes people come in and the victim or the alleged victim says that they lied to the police. They lied. The person gets arrested. They want to tell the truth. Or, maybe the opposite happened, and the offense did occur. Maybe what they told police was the truth, but they don’t want to prosecute in either of those scenarios. Most of the time what happens is that it causes the prosecution to sort of go into a reactive mode to protect the victim.

So, a lot of people are under the misguided notion that if they don’t want to press charges, all they have to do is tell the D.A. or the police officer that it was a big mistake, or that they don’t want to proceed, and the case would get dropped. That is very much not the case. In fact, if somebody persists, it can make the D.A. pursue the case even more because they want to try to protect that person. They may feel as if they are getting pressured into persisting and trying to get them not prosecuted. It is not up to the victim. It’s up to the police and the D.A. on whether a case gets dropped.

For more information on Penalties For Aggravated Assault Conviction, a free consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (469) 900-0000 today.