Do you know what PC 245 entails? In what cases can somebody be charged with assault with a deadly weapon? Maybe you or a loved on acted in defense, but was reasonable force used? PC 245 is a felony in the state of California and will leave a strike on you or a loved one's criminal record.

Another strike can double your punishment and harshen your sentence significantly. In this video, our Senior Partner, Paul Wallin, goes over Penal Code 245. Wallin and Klarich's experienced criminal defense attorneys has over 40 years of experience fighting PC 245 charges and may be able to get the felony reduced to a misdemeanor. Give us a call!




Transcript:
Hi, I'm Paul Wallin, Senior Partner of Wallin and Klarich and today we're going to talk about the crime of PC 245, assault with a deadly weapon or assault with intent to commit great bodily injury. If you're accused of that crime in California, it's an extremely serious crime because it can be prosecuted as a felony. And if it's prosecuted as a felony, you can go to prison if you're convicted and you can have a strike on your record. One of the worst things you can get in California is a criminal record where you have a strike because it means if you get another serious crime, your sentence can double.
Assault with intent to commit great bodily injury is a crime that requires you to have intended to cause great bodily injury to another person by something like throwing a beer bottle at them or using a beer bottle to swing at them and the thing that makes it so serious is that even if you miss, you can be guilty of the crime because it has to do with what your intent was. And if your intent was to cause serious injury to the person, whether you were successful or not, you can be found guilty. A very high percentage of these cases that we see on a regular basis happen because the person accused and often the victim as well have been drinking too much or under the influence of alcohol.
So the first bit of advice that I would recommend to anyone is, don't get drunk at a bar because there's a tremendous number of these cases that happen outside the bar or in the bar, sometimes over a fight over a female between males and sometimes over a fight over a male and our client is a female and sometimes it can be a same-sex situation. The bottom line is it's a serious crime and if God forbid you are accused, we have 38 years of doing this, representing people successfully facing such serious charges. In some cases, we may be able to have the charge reduced to a misdemeanor, which would change everything. Instead of facing many years in prison, you'd be facing a maximum of a County Jail sentence. And if you get a County jail sentence, you only do 50% of your time. So all of a sudden your exposure shrinks dramatically. And that is why you would want to get the charge to a misdemeanor.
Better yet, if you can claim that you were acting in self-defense, that would be a valid defense. A person has the right to exercise reasonable force to defend themselves. But what does reasonable force mean? Well, what it doesn't mean is if someone comes at you with a fist, you can't take out a gun and blow his head off because that's not reasonable force. That's excessive force. A jury would ultimately decide whether you used reasonable force to defend yourself or excessive force. So these are very important things. No one other than a criminal defense attorney has the knowledge required to successfully defend someone from such a serious charge.
If you call our office, we will always give you a free phone consultation to tell you everything that we can tell you about how to defend your case. And if you decide you want to hire us, we offer reasonable fees and in many cases, payment plans. So feel free to call us. I'm Paul Wallen, senior partner at Wallen and Claridge. We have 10 criminal defense attorneys. You can speak to any one of them about your case. You'll feel a lot better cause a lot of the mystery when you're facing a serious crime is not knowing what's going to happen.
The fear of not knowing is very devastating to people. It leads people not to be able to sleep at night, sometimes having to take prescription medication. We don't want you to have to do that. It's tough enough to fight a criminal case without a great criminal defense attorney working for you. So we'll wait for your call to answer your questions and we will not judge you in any way, shape or form because great people sometimes make a mistake and hopefully you didn't make a mistake at all and we can get the charges dropped. So anyway, Wallin and Klarich, (877) 466-5245. We'll be there when you call. Have a great evening.

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