Supreme Court of California

In a case involving the "present ability" element of the crime of assault, the California Supreme Court rules that it is a defendant's action enabling him to inflict a present injury that constitutes the actus reus of assault. There is no requirement that the injury would necessarily occur as the very next step in the sequence of events, or without any delay.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/18/2008
• Published 08/18/2008

Judges

• CORRIGAN, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Mary Jo Graves and Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Brian G. Smiley, Julie A. Hokans, Janet Neeley, Harry Joseph Colombo and Peter W. Thompson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent., Richard Power, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.