Miami Assault and Battery Defense Attorney

Charged With Assault or Battery?

If you’re reading this from a courthouse hallway or the day after a booking, you’re in the right place. We handle assault and battery matters across Miami-Dade County — from North Miami and North Miami Beach up through Aventura, and down into Miami Shores and the surrounding neighborhoods. What you need right now isn’t a lecture. It’s a clear picture of what you’re facing and someone who treats you like a person, not a file number. That’s how we work. And because most of these cases land in state court, being ready to try one matters far more than most people realize.

Assault vs. Battery in Florida

People mix these two up constantly, and the difference actually matters for your case. In Florida, assault is a threat. It’s when someone believes you’re about to hurt them and has good reason to think so — no physical contact required. Battery is the contact itself: touching or striking another person against their will.

From there, both split into tiers. Simple assault and simple battery sit on the lower end. Aggravated assault usually involves a deadly weapon or the intent to commit a more serious crime, and aggravated battery involves serious bodily harm or a weapon. That single word — “aggravated” — is the line between a misdemeanor and a felony on your record. If the paperwork you were handed uses it, take it seriously. The exact statutory definitions and how they apply to your facts are things we’ll walk through with you directly, because the label on the charging document isn’t always where the case ends up.

Penalties From Misdemeanor to Felony

The honest answer to “how bad is this?” is that it depends on where your charge sits on the ladder. Misdemeanor battery carries the lowest exposure. Felony battery steps it up. Aggravated battery — the kind involving bodily harm or a weapon — carries the most serious consequences of the three. Jail time, a permanent felony record, and the ripple effects on jobs and housing all scale with the category.

There’s another factor worth naming. If you have prior convictions, Florida’s habitual offender and Three-Strikes rules can push sentencing exposure far higher than the charge alone suggests. We handle sentencing mitigation in exactly those situations. Here’s the thing to hold onto: the penalties written in the statute are the ceiling, not the outcome. What the State can charge and what it can prove after a real defense are two very different things.

If any of this is sitting heavy on you right now, call us at (305) 315-5147 and talk it through with an attorney who handles these cases.

When Battery Meets Family Disputes

A lot of battery arrests in Miami-Dade grow out of a heated moment at home, a breakup, or a custody fight that boiled over. When that happens, you’re often fighting on two fronts at the same time. There’s the criminal charge itself, and there’s frequently a restraining order or injunction filed alongside it — and those two proceedings run on separate tracks, sometimes with the injunction moving faster.

This is where having one firm handle everything helps. Our domestic violence defense practice specifically covers false allegations that surface in custody disputes, and our restraining order defense work spans domestic violence, dating violence, repeat violence, and stalking injunctions. We also practice family law, including custody and time-sharing. So if your criminal case and a parallel injunction hearing are both hanging over you, you’re not stitching together three different lawyers who don’t talk to each other. One team sees the whole board and defends both tracks with the same strategy in mind.

Building a Trial-Ready Defense

People ask what we’ll actually do for them. The short version: we prepare your case as though it’s going to trial from day one. Not because every case ends there, but because we enjoy trying cases, and prosecutors know it. A firm with a reputation for taking cases to a jury negotiates from a very different position than one that folds early.

On the experience side, this matters. Robert Erickson’s case history includes aggravated battery along with violent-crime matters as serious as murder and kidnapping. An aggravated battery charge is nowhere near the ceiling of what we’ve handled in a courtroom. When self-defense is part of your story — and in a lot of battery cases it is — we dig into who the real aggressor was, what the witnesses actually saw, and where the State’s version of events falls apart. Self-defense is a recognized, fact-driven defense in Florida, and how the evidence lines up is what decides whether it works.

State Court Experience Since 2000

Because most assault and battery charges are state-court matters, it helps to know who’s running that side of the firm. Luis Reynoso heads our state court practice. He’s practiced with one of South Florida’s top criminal defense firms since 2000 and has secured jury acquittals for clients. His practice areas include domestic violence and violations of probation — both of which attach to battery cases all the time. Between our two partners, we bring more than 25 years of combined trial experience to the table. That’s a real courtroom track record in Miami-Dade, not a slogan.