Does First Offense Domestic Violence Require Jail Time

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Quoting jan2011kd

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No, the only time he appeared in court was for arraignment. His mother said he went into the court room, no court appointed attorney, and plead guilty. He has since applied for a court appointed attorney, so his sister is now telling me, and is waiting to see if he qualifies. She said he plead guilty because that's what he thought he was supposed to do, since he was guilty for fighting with me.

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When you say "fighting", do you mean arguing and yelling? Or do you mean that there was pushing, shoving, hitting, etc?

Unless the laws have changed in the last year it doesn't matter. The law in place last year included;

causing the the victim to fear being injured.


That is what an assault is after all

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Quoting jk

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Unless the laws have changed in the last year it doesn't matter. The law in place last year included;

causing the the victim to fear being injured.


That is what an assault is after all

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That is a very broad description. Would simply yelling at a person, "I hate you, you stupid idiot", be considered assault?

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Quoting John_28

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The way some domestic-violence statutes are written, there doesn't need to be any violence at all, in order for a person to be arrested for domestic violence. An arrest for "domestic violence" can occur just for yelling and/or using profanity.

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That's not quite true. Yelling and using profanity, in and of themselves aren't criminal actions. The line that gets crossed to make words alone the crime of assault is if those words, under the standard of "reasonable person", cause a victim to be in fear for their immediate safety.

Assault also is any intentional act or threat of action, if the assailant appears to have the ability to carry out the threat, that reasonably causes a person to believe that he is about to be struck or injured. (Mich.Stat. Ann. §750.81.)

So for example, even if you are whispering sweet nothings, if you are punching walls, kicking the dog, and smacking your fist into your hand as you talk, it's still an assault, because those actions are going to reasonably put someone in fear; the threat can be IMPLIED as well as spoken.

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Would simply yelling at a person, "I hate you, you stupid idiot", be considered assault?

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The words alone, No. Breach of the peace for yelling maybe, but not an assault due to content of the phrase. But again, coupling the words with ACTIONS could be. Context is everything.