Rockville Assault Investigations
Knowing your rights is paramount to adequately handling an assault accusation. Therefore, if you have been charged with assault, it is imperative to find a Rockville assault lawyer that you can trust who knows the ins and outs of the legal system and can ensure a fair trial. Depending on the severity of the assault, the charge could range from a misdemeanor to a much more serious felony charge. These charges are serious and can have a very negative long-term impact on a person’s life and future prospects.
Structure of an Assault Investigation
Assault investigations differ depending on the more specific details of a case. In a standard assault case where somebody might have committed a misdemeanor by assaulting another individual, Rockville police officers could be investigating the case. It could be at a bar, it could be domestic-violence related; incidents of assault can really take place anywhere in Rockville because a second degree assault or simple assault usually does not involve a weapon and could be something like pushing somebody into danger or punching them.
When local police officers are investigating an assault, they will seek to question eyewitnesses and the victim for their testimony. Therefore, the investigation of a Rockville assault misdemeanor can involve police officers, individuals or witnesses, and the actual victim.
Evidence Collected for an Assault Case
The most common piece of evidence collected by the prosecution or witnesses is the statement of the individual who was actually assaulted, or anybody else who may have seen the act itself taking place. Other things that would be collected would be any weapons, fingerprints and photographs of injuries that might be available. Essentially what the prosecution is trying to prove here is that an assault actually took place, and an assault is any actual physical touching of another or threat of violence towards another to which that person did not consent. The degree of the violence or touching will change the characteristics of a case from a misdemeanor to a felony, depending on how serious it is. Essentially that is what the prosecution is looking for in an investigation like this.
Felony Rockville assault charges or first degree assault charges can sometimes be a little bit more involved in terms of who participates in the investigation. For example, if a stabbing took place or if there were weapons involved, fingerprint experts, DNA experts and other people may be called upon by the police department to participate in the investigation.
Additionally, if there were guns involved, ballistic experts might be involved in determining particular characteristics of bullet injuries, casings, and the guns or other kinds of weapons that might have been used. The parties involved in that kind of investigation can be a little bit more specialized and more voluminous in number than in a simple assault investigation. However, the primary evidence in these cases will be testimony from witnesses and the victim, police officers and any physical evidence that might be on the scene that could support the investigation and would be used together to move forward with an assault charge.