Legal question of profound inanity

[Elok]

We have TVs on the walls at the restaurant I work at, and t'other day one of them was tuned to some legal drama. Dunno what it was called, and it doesn't matter, but this chick in the witness stand had a black eye, and the judge asked her whether there was any chance someone had "assaulted [her] to get [her] to change testimony."

I immediately thought: in U.S. law, doesn't "assault" refer to threatening someone with violence, while threatening followed by actual violence is "assault and battery"? So if the witness looked all jumpy and frightened, but unharmed, she may have been assaulted. In this case she was battered, no? If I'm mistaken the whole question is moot, of course, but you'd think a judge, being accustomed to legal terminology, would use the correct terms. For her to say "assaulted" when she meant "battered" would be like a scientist saying an experiment "could take light-years to complete." No?

Tragically, all this speculation was cut short by my shift manager, who came over and hissed, "shutupshutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!" Apparently I was talking about it too loudly and it was Ruining the Dining Experience for several customers, who I guess are put off their food by lame and irrelevant discussions of legal stuff.

Anyway, Imran? Ali?

[Japher]

Why does it matter, it wasn't her trial against some dirtbag for beating her up. If she was threatened in order to change her answers it means the same thing if she was beatin' to change her answer.

[Lorizael]

Well, should the judge have said, "Did someone batter you?"

[-Jrabbit]

No. Legal definitions are not required in witness testimony.

The dictionary definition of "assault" (verb, transitive) is: make a physical attack upon.
The noun form: a physical attack.

The show is on solid linguistic ground here.

[Elok]

Perhaps, but I maintain that a judge who uses the term in its legal sense every day ought to feel a little odd using it that way. I'd imagine a judge would say "physically abuse" if she didn't want to just use the prosaic "attack" or "beat."

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Looking for a legal definition, the first thing that popped out of Google was teh definition in Texas:

Sec. 22.01. ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an offense if the person:

(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another, including the person's spouse;

(2) intentionally or knowingly threatens another with imminent bodily injury, including the person's spouse; or

(3) intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative.

http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/PE/content/htm/pe.005.00.000022.00.htm

I doubt its much different from any other state's definition. So, yeah, assault is actually physical. How it differs from battery, I don't know.

[Elok]

Huh. Well, moving on, would you feel that a loud background discussion of a legal drama's possible misuse of a word detracted from your dining experience?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Normally, I'd agree with your manager, but don't you work in a pizza joint? I've never not been subjected to annoying overheard conversation in a pizza joint.

[Solomwi]

Elok, in a common law torts context, you're right. I'm a bit hurt at being left out of the legal roll call in the OP, though.

There. I'm over it now.

[Lorizael]

Huh. Well, moving on, would you feel that a loud background discussion of a legal drama's possible misuse of a word detracted from your dining experience?

I'd be amazed if I heard such conversation at a pizza joint.

[Elok]

Actually, Sol, I didn't know you were in law. You learn something every day...

[asleepathewheel]

We have TVs on the walls at the restaurant I work at, and t'other day one of them was tuned to some legal drama. Dunno what it was called, and it doesn't matter, but this chick in the witness stand had a black eye, and the judge asked her whether there was any chance someone had "assaulted [her] to get [her] to change testimony."

I immediately thought: in U.S. law, doesn't "assault" refer to threatening someone with violence, while threatening followed by actual violence is "assault and battery"? So if the witness looked all jumpy and frightened, but unharmed, she may have been assaulted. In this case she was battered, no? If I'm mistaken the whole question is moot, of course, but you'd think a judge, being accustomed to legal terminology, would use the correct terms. For her to say "assaulted" when she meant "battered" would be like a scientist saying an experiment "could take light-years to complete." No?

Actually, a judge saying it like this is probably more realistic than 99% of what you see in courtroom dramas, despite the imprecision in terminology.

Judges at this level are elected and will tend to speak in a...less technical matter when addressing defendants and witnesses. Hell, some even speak street to the defendants and witnesses, which is quite entertaining to watch. The Judge Joe Brown syndrome. I had a great Rican judge who would really drop down to the criminal's language level when hammering them. Hilarious, and seemed to be more effective than using the queen's english.

Unfortunately, judges that do well with this type of situation don't enjoy the cases that I prosecute these days due to the mind numbing complexity and time required. :*(

[Solomwi]

Speaking of your new line of work, asleep, I had a hearing this morning in the judge's chambers, right across the hall from the judge handling the Scrushy trial. Ran into a friend of mine who's on Scrushy's defense team while our judge was holding up our med mal discovery hearing to organize a jury for the other judge. It was a freaking circus.

[Lefty Scaevola]

In criminal law speak and in criminal statutes in the USA 'assault' usually means assault and battery, threatened attacks without contact and typically called something else.

In civil tort speak it usually means what it would under British law, the threat of attack without the battery.

It can vary form jurisdiction to jurisdiction.