HOW AN ACCIDENTAL TOUCHING OF AN OFFICER CAN RESULT IN BATTERY ON A LAW ENFORCEMENT ARREST

Since a battery under Florida law is an intentional touching or striking of another person, a battery committed against a law enforcement officer should always require that the defendant intended to touch or strike an officer. Yet officers often make arrests for Battery on a Law Enforcement Officer (BOLEO) where there's no evidence of any intention to commit battery on the officer. 

W.C. Fields about to be Battered

While working years ago as a prosecutor and now as a defense lawyer in Tampa Bay, Florida I've seen dozens of cases dismissed or reduced when evidence clearly established that an officer was not intentionally touched. 

The following are four ways in which law enforcement officers often mistakenly charge an unintended or accidental touching as a BOLEO:

1. Law enforcement officers may overreact when they feel that a situation is getting out of control and make a BOLEO arrest to quell the situation. Officer safety is a legitimate issue but an arrest for BOLEO should only be made if the facts and circumstances of the case support an intentional touching or striking of an officer.

2. Other cases result from what should be charged as a mere misdemeanor resisting arrest without violence where a defendant is not immediately obeying an officer's commands to allow an arrest or provide specific information. In these situations the case should be reduced from a felony to reflect the actual facts of the case.

3. Sometimes officers become frustrated during the course of an investigation if an officer is injured even if the defendant had no intention of doing anything to the officer. In one case I had years ago the officer was angry that his glasses broke while securing my client during an arrest and was more than happy to use a felony charge as a means of paying for his new frames thru restitution. The other officers testified that there was no unlawful touching or striking of the officer's face so the BOLEO charge was dismissed.

4. Officer or prosecutors may make a tactical decision to add BOLEO charges that would normally not be filed where it can be used as effective leverage to convict the defendant of other charged misconduct. By driving the guidelines higher with a new charge the prosecutors up the ante for a defendant who might want to fight the other charges in trial thus increasing the chances of obtaining a conviction.

If you've been falsely arrested for Battery on a law enforcement officer, it's important to have a criminal defense lawyer look for the underlying reasons why a BOLEO charge has been filed in each case and then to support his conclusions with evidence such as video, audio, photographs, medical records or witness testimony. By establishing a likely motive for the police to have mistakenly charged the felony BOLEO it becomes much more likely to find ways to dismiss the charge or reduce the felony to a more manageable misdemeanor.