Battery resulting in bodily injury is a Class A misdemeanor under I.C. 35-42-2-1, although it could be a class D felony (depending on who the victim is).
A person guilty of a Class A misdemeanor could be sentenced up to 1 year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
A person guilty of a Class D felony has an advisory sentence of 1 1/2 years, but the actual sentence could be between 1/2 to 3 years, depending on the specific circumstances and the offender. There's also a fine of up to $10,000.
I can't advise what your sentence might be unless I'm the one writing your Pre-Sentence Report. I'm an Indiana probation officer.
Actually, I'm not the perpetrator, a friend of mine was the victim of this crime. Let me tell you what happened. But before I do that, one question. Does this mean that what that guy did to my friend is only a misdemeanor? Doing some research on the internet, I thought I read somewhere that battery resulting in disfigurement was a felony. I don't remember where I read that but I'm trying to find it again on google. I can't believe that someone can go around like that and disfigure innocent people and get away scott free with it. That's what happened here. This guy walked away with this herrendous crime without any repercussions what so ever.
Anyway, here's the story. This happened a long time ago, back in 1995. But to this day, 13 years later, he still can't get it out of his mind how this guy did this to him and absolutely nothing could be done to punish this person. It makes me wonder what kind of society we live in when people can go around disfiguring innocent people's faces like this and walk away laughing and nothing can be done about it.
Back in 1995, a friend of mine was sitting down minding his own business when someone, drunk on alcohol, came up to him and attacked him, breaking his nose so bad that he disfigured him very bad. My friend was told that it would cost him $13,000 (back in 1995) to have reconstructive surgery. My friend didn't have insurance, he had to pay for this out of his own pocket. He tried calling lawyers to try to sue this person to have him pay for this. No lawyer would take this case for two reasons. One was that since there were no witnesses, it was his word against the other person's word on who started it, even though my friend didn't even swing at this guy once and this guy didn't have a scratch on him. The other reason one lawyer gave was that he, and most lawyers wouldn't touch the case since there was alcohol involved. Since there was alcohol involved, it would be really difficult to get accurate statements to what happened, they said, which allows me to believe that as long as someone gets hammered first, then it's ok for that person to go around and attack people.
To make things worse, he was advised by that county's police department not to file a police report against this guy. I don't know who he spoke to, but he doesn't think it was with a police officer. He most likely spoke to a dispatcher, who told him he would be wasting his time if he were to file a police report. So besides having to pay for what happened to him out of his own pocket, or remain permanently disfigured for the rest of his life, he couldn't even file a police report to have this guy pay for his crime by doing jail time.
The lady he spoke to when he called the police station told him he had to come to the police station in person in order to be able to file the police report, but when he told her what happened, she advised him not file the police report because he would just be wasting his time when she found out that there were no witnesses.
Does this mean that someone can go around and beat the crap out of people and get away with it as long as there are no witnesses?
He regrets not filing that report and keeps wondering to this day if justice might have been done if he pressed charges and filed the report and didn't listen to the advice of the person he spoke to on the phone at the police station who told him that he'd just be wasting his time by doing so. That decision is still eating away at him 13 years later.
I think I read somewhere on the internet that a felony in Indiana has no statute of limitations. I'm trying to find that source again also. I should have bookmarked these sources when I first found them. That's why I was wondering if this was a felony since it involved disfigurement as a result from the battery.
If a felony has no statute of limitations in Indiana, does that mean that the person who had a felony crime committed against him/her can still file a report against that person who committed this crime (13 years later) or does it only mean that someone can be arrested for that crime no matter how much time goes by as long as the victim reported the crime within a certain timeframe?
As a last note, the guy who attacked my friend and disfigured his face ended up getting a very high paying job right afterwards, found a really good looking girl, has been raising a family with her and has had, a very great and rewarding life ever since, while my friend's life has been devasted. Isn't there any justice in this world?
