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"Serious Bodily Injury" in Aggravated Assault Cases

By Baker Associates

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals recently made life a little tougher for criminal defendants and defense attorneys by ruling that "intentional or knowing" mental requirement that is present in the assault and aggravated assault statutes does not apply to the element of "serious bodily injury" that is required for an aggravated assault conviction. In a case called State v. Jones, the Court ruled that the statute was written in such a way that to be convicted of aggravated assault, defendants did not have to know or intend that their actions would cause "serious bodily injury" to the victim; rather, it was enough that the defendant simply intended to cause some type of bodily injury and that serious bodily injury did occur.

Full post as published by Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog on January 07, 2011 (boomark / email).