[Aceshigh]

Hello all, I just found this forum a few days ago on my Blackberry
and finally remembered to come back and bookmark it.

Here's the scenario. (Dupage County)

My brother (age 26) was charged with Domestic Battery this past
weekend for pushing our cousin (female 30y/o) off of him because she
threw a beer at him and then got up in his face and spit on him, so he
told her to back off, when she didn't he pushed her back.....she was wearing
high heels, so she fell......both were intoxicated, she calls the police
and here we are today. After he was seen by the judge they set his
bail at $15,000 and I had to come up with $1530 to get him out so
he could still go to work instead of sitting until his court date of Nov 19th.

He failed to mention that she assaulted him first because he did not
know her actions were considered a "Battery" and besides him feeling
guilty, he just went into custody. After the situation has been
laid before me with 3 witnesses backing him up on scene, it appears
he might have SOME recourse here.......

Now for the complicated part. (Cook County) < Chicago
He recently was arrested for having a party at my house in Mar 2007
and 36 people were 19 + 20 years old, and were ticketed for underage
drinking......he of course threw the party so he got nailed for it.
He was placed on 1 year court supervision for whatever charge he got.
I'm unsure of what it was exactly.....probably contributing to delinq of a minor. I dunno.
I'm not sure if it matters if it's in different counties or not.....??

What should he do here??? The lawyer he used in the Mar 2007 case
told him he would represent him for $1500 but I'm not even sure he needs
a lawyer since he has 3 witnesses and my idiot female cousin (who does
this CONSTANTLY) has 1 witness whom is the guy she's dating.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If he's seriously thinking about taking the case to trial, he should get a lawyer to assist him. What you describe isn't self-defense, by the way, and "she hit (spit on?) me first" doesn't work very well in court as a defense to battery - it's really an argument that she should also face charges.