The Law School Toolbox Podcast: Tools for Law Students from 1L to the Bar Exam, and Beyond
Aug 24, 2026 · 9 min · 7 segments
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! Today, we're discussing four crimes against the person – assault, battery, false imprisonment, and kidnapping. We'll walk through the elements of each…
[upbeat music] Today, we are diving into crimes against the person, specifically assault, battery, false imprisonment, and kidnapping.
We will walk through the elements of each crime and use examples to illustrate how these crimes may appear and interact on the bar exam or your law school exams.
Though these terms are often used together, they're actually two distinct crimes.
An assault is an act that creates a reasonable apprehension of an immediate harm or offensive contact.
Battery, on the other hand, is the actual contact or the harmful or offensive touching of another person.
Think of assault as putting someone in fear of being hurt or touched offensively, while battery is actually hurting or touching them.
Now that we have distinguished these crimes, let's break down the elements of each, starting with assault.
An assault is, one, an intentional act, two, that causes the victim to be placed in reasonable apprehension, three, of an imminent harm or offensive contact with the victim's person.
By intentional, we mean that the defendant acted either A, with the purpose of causing such apprehension, or B, with the knowledge to a substantial certainty that the apprehension will result.
Additionally, if a defendant attempts a battery but fails to make contact, this may constitute an assault if the victim reasonably fears the attempted contact.
A battery is, one, the unlawful application of force, two, directly or indirectly upon another person or their close personal belongings, and three, that results in an injury or offensive contact.
For example, if I swing a punch at you and miss, that's an assault as long as you reasonably feared I was about to hit you.
On the other hand, the missed punch is not a battery because there's no actual contact or unlawful application of force.
An example of the indirect application of force is throwing something heavy, like a rock, at another person.
If the rock misses, this is likely an assault, but it is not a battery because there is no contact.
[upbeat music] Today, we are diving into crimes against the person, specifically assault, battery, false imprisonment, and kidnapping.
We will walk through the elements of each crime and use examples to illustrate how these crimes may appear and interact on the bar exam or your law school exams.
Though these terms are often used together, they're actually two distinct crimes.
An assault is an act that creates a reasonable apprehension of an immediate harm or offensive contact.
Battery, on the other hand, is the actual contact or the harmful or offensive touching of another person.
Think of assault as putting someone in fear of being hurt or touched offensively, while battery is actually hurting or touching them.
Now that we have distinguished these crimes, let's break down the elements of each, starting with assault.
An assault is, one, an intentional act, two, that causes the victim to be placed in reasonable apprehension, three, of an imminent harm or offensive contact with the victim's person.
By intentional, we mean that the defendant acted either A, with the purpose of causing such apprehension, or B, with the knowledge to a substantial certainty that the apprehension will result.
Additionally, if a defendant attempts a battery but fails to make contact, this may constitute an assault if the victim reasonably fears the attempted contact.
A battery is, one, the unlawful application of force, two, directly or indirectly upon another person or their close personal belongings, and three, that results in an injury or offensive contact.
For example, if I swing a punch at you and miss, that's an assault as long as you reasonably feared I was about to hit you.
On the other hand, the missed punch is not a battery because there's no actual contact or unlawful application of force.
An example of the indirect application of force is throwing something heavy, like a rock, at another person.
If the rock misses, this is likely an assault, but it is not a battery because there is no contact.
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