It is natural to want to resist arrest when your freedom is at stake. However, such transgression results can result in disastrous consequences. For example, in New Jersey, such acts are slapped with criminal conduct charges, and even verbal resistance is sufficient to be slapped with such charges. Furthermore, as these charges are often based on your word against the police, these can lead to serious penalties including long jail times. Hence, it is important to hire a New Jersey criminal defense attorney to build your legal case.
Social Media vs Reality
While on social media, videos of people physically resisting arrests are widespread, the reality on the ground can be much different. For example, many cases in resisting arrests are often verbal duels with the police. These charges also include threatening the officer with physical violence, and this can even happen when you have not threatened the officer, but just moved in a way that is perceived as threatening by the officers. Furthermore, leading the authorities with false information is also seen as resisting arrest, and result in a misdemeanor or felony.
Categories
Resisting arrests come under the two broad categories of felonies or misdemeanors. These two are further divided into subcategories by law into attempts to flee the scene, purposely preventing the officer from making an arrest, threatening to use violence, and more. Additionally, heavy penalties are handed out in such cases in accordance with second-degree, third-degree, and fourth-degree indictable offenses. These include a maximum penalty of $150,000 in fines and 5-10 years in prison. At the bare minimum, one can face up to 18 months in prison and $10,000 in fines in general.
Potential Defense
In order to help a client build his case successfully, the attorney needs to prove that the defendant had no intent to disobey the authority. In such cases, an acquittal is guaranteed. In order to achieve this, a lawyer needs to prove that authority was harming you or had the intent to harm you with hard evidence. Moreover, it can also be argued that since the defendant was innocent, he or she did not realize the implication. While being innocent does not allow anyone to resist arrest, being innocent can help establish grounds for misunderstanding as opposed to disobeying the authority.
A resisting arrest conviction can have various harmful effects on your career. For example, in New Jersey, one can be barred from housing, government loans, voting rights, employment, and even a chance to serve in the US military.
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