Battery is a criminal offense involving "unlawful intentional infliction of harmful or offensive physical contact with another person without consent". It may be either simple or aggravated, and is distinct from assault, which is the act of creating reasonable fear or apprehension of such contact.
Battery is a specific common law offense, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person. Battery is defined by American common law as "any unlawful and/or unwanted touching of the person of another by the aggressor, or by a substance put in motion by them". In more severe cases, and for all types in some jurisdictions, it is chiefly defined by statutory wording. Assessment of the severity of a battery is determined by local law.
Contents
Generally
Specific rules regarding battery vary among different jurisdictions, but some elements remain constant across jurisdictions. Battery generally requires that:
an offensive touch or contact is made upon the victim, instigated by the actor; and
the actor intends or knows that their action will cause the offensive touching.
Under the US Model Penal Code and in some jurisdictions, there is battery when the actor acts recklessly without specific intent of causing an offensive contact. Battery is typically classified as either simple or aggravated. Although battery typically occurs in the context of physical altercations, it may also occur under other circumstances, such as in medical cases where a doctor performs a non-consented medical procedure.
Specific countries
Canada
Battery is not defined in the Canadian Criminal Code. Instead, the Code has an offense of assault, and assault causing bodily harm.
England and Wales
Battery is a common law offence within England and Wales.
As with the majority of offences in the UK, it has two elements:
Actus reus: The defendant unlawfully touched or applied force to the victim
Mens rea: The defendant intended or was reckless as to the unlawful touch or application of force
This offence is a crime against autonomy, with more violent crimes such as ABH and GBH being statutory offences under the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
As such, even the slightest of touches can amount to an unlawful application of force. However, it is assumed that everyday encounters (such as making contact with others on public transportation) are consented to and not punishable.
Much confusion can come between the terms "assault" and "battery". In everyday use the term assault may be used to describe a physical attack, which is indeed a battery. An assault is causing someone to apprehend that they will be the victim of a battery. This issue is so prevalent that the crime of sexual assault would be better labelled a sexual battery. This confusion stems from the fact that both assault and battery can be referred to as common assault. In practice, if charged with such an offence, the wording will read "assault by beating", but this means the same as "battery".
There is no separate offence for a battery relating to domestic violence; however, the introduction of the crime of "controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship" in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 has given rise to new sentencing guidelines that take into account significant aggravating factors such as abuse of trust, resulting in potentially longer sentences for acts of battery within the context of domestic violence.
In DPP v Taylor, DPP v Little, it was held that battery is a statutory offence, contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, although it provides no definition. The court compared the construction of the offence to the treatment of buggery under section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which is intended by Parliament to have been abolished when that section was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1956. This decision was contradicted in Haystead v DPP where the Divisional Court expressed the obiter opinion that battery remains a common law offence.
Russia
There is an offence which could be (loosely) described as battery in Russia. Article 116 of the Russian Criminal Code provides that battery or similar violent actions which cause pain are an offence.
Scotland
There is no distinct offence of battery in Scotland. The offence of assault includes acts that could be described as battery.
United States
In the United States, criminal battery, or simple battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact, including sexual contact. At common law, simple battery is a misdemeanor. The prosecutor must prove all three elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
an unlawful application of force
to the person of another
resulting in either bodily injury or offensive touching.
The common-law elements serve as a basic template, but individual jurisdictions may alter them, and they may vary slightly from state to state.
Under modern statutory schemes, battery is often divided into grades that determine the severity of punishment. For example:
Simple battery may include any form of non-consensual harmful or insulting contact, regardless of the injury caused. Criminal battery requires intent to inflict an injury on another.
Sexual battery may be defined as non-consensual touching of the intimate parts of another. At least in Florida, "Sexual battery means oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or vaginal penetration of another by any other object": See section 794.011.
Family-violence battery may be limited in its scope between persons within a certain degree of relationship: statutes for this offense have been enacted in response to increasing awareness of the problem of domestic violence.
Aggravated battery generally is seen as a serious offense of felony grade. Aggravated battery charges may occur when a battery causes serious bodily injury or permanent disfigurement. As a successor to the common law crime of mayhem, this is sometimes subsumed in the definition of assault. In Florida, aggravated battery is the intentional infliction of great bodily harm and is a second-degree felony, whereas battery that unintentionally causes great bodily harm is considered a third-degree felony.
Jurisdictional differences
In some jurisdictions, battery has recently been constructed to include directing bodily secretions (i.e., spitting) at another person without their permission. Some of those jurisdictions automatically elevate such a battery to the charge of aggravated battery. In some jurisdictions, the charge of criminal battery also requires evidence of a mental state (mens rea). The terminology used to refer to a particular offense can also vary by jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions, such as New York, refer to what, under the common-law, would-be battery as assault, and then use another term for the crime that would have been assault, such as menacing.
Distinction between battery and assault
A typical overt behavior of an assault is Person A chasing Person B and swinging a fist toward their head. That for battery is A striking B.
Battery requires:
a volitional act (that is the defendant was acting voluntarily), that
results in physical (or in the US, "harmful or offensive") contact with another person, and
is committed for the purpose of causing that contact, or, in the US, under circumstances that render such contact substantially certain to occur or with a reckless disregard as to whether such contact will result, or in England and Wales, reckless that it might occur (meaning that the defendant foresaw the risk of that contact and carried on unreasonably to take that risk).
Assault, where rooted on English law, the act of intentionally causing a person to apprehend physical contact with their person. Elsewhere it is often similarly worded as the threat of violence to a person, while aggravated assault is the threat with the clear and present ability and willingness to carry it out. Aggravated battery is, typically, offensive touching without a tool or weapon, with attempt to harm or restrain.