In California, child abuse refers to willfully inflicting cruel and inhuman punishment or injury on a child. This can include shaking, hitting, burning, pushing, kicking, or choking a child. In most cases, spanking is considered a reasonable disciplinary action and doesn’t qualify as child abuse. If you’ve been accused of child abuse it’s important that you don’t simply roll over. You can fight your charges and Law Offices of Torrence L. Howell is here to help.
The nuances of child abuse can be complex
Keep in mind that when it comes to child abuse, when the court refers to willfully inflicting injury, this doesn’t mean that you must have intended for the result to happen. It only means that you intended to do whatever it was that you did that led to the injury.
Consider this example: A child is acting up and their caregiver yanks their arm. They happen to get the child just right and their shoulder is dislocated. This could be considered child abuse even though the injury wasn’t intended. On the other hand, if someone accidentally elbowed a child, then it wouldn’t be abuse because the act wasn’t willful.
The consequences of a conviction can be serious
Child abuse can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. It largely depends on your criminal history and the evidence in your case. Being tough on child abuse serves prosecutors well, which is why they will typically try to charge these cases as felonies if they can.
A misdemeanor conviction is punishable by up to a year in county jail. If you’re convicted of a felony, then you could be facing up to six years in prison plus the possibility of an additional four years if you’ve been convicted of child abuse in the decade prior to this conviction. Both misdemeanors and felonies can result in fines of as much as $6,000.
Remember that if you’re in the middle of a child custody battle, a conviction for child abuse can affect your case. It could lead to you being prevented from getting joint custody and could even go as far as preventing you from having unsupervised visits with your children.
There are defense options for child abuse in California
The sad truth is that many child abuse allegations aren’t true. In some cases, they’re made up because the child or someone with ulterior motives is feeling angry, jealous, or wants revenge. When you choose Law Offices of Torrence L. Howell as your criminal defense attorney, you can count on us to consider every possible avenue for a rigorous defense.
We will get expert testimony to uncover if the injuries were caused by a normal accident, or we can prove that you were acting within your legal rights to punish your child, or perhaps we’ll show that you didn’t intentionally harm your child. It all depends on the specifics of your case. Call Law Offices of Torrence L. Howell today at 909-920-0908 for your free case evaluation and we can discuss your options.
