What Is Assault and Battery in Texas?

Texas law has no separate crime called battery. Penal Code § 22.01 folds both old common-law concepts into one assault statute with three tiers: causing bodily injury (Class A misdemeanor), threatening imminent bodily injury (Class C), and offensive contact (Class C). Aggravating facts — weapons, strangulation, protected victims — push assault into felony territory.

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Is There a Separate Battery Charge in Texas?

No. Texas retired the word “battery” from its criminal law when the modern Penal Code took effect on January 1, 1974. The Legislature folded the two old common-law crimes — assault (putting someone in fear of a blow) and battery (actually landing it) — into a single statute, Penal Code § 22.01, and called the whole thing assault. Search the Penal Code for a battery offense and you will not find one.

The Texas Supreme Court has spelled out exactly how the old labels map onto the modern statute. In City of Watauga v. Gordon, 434 S.W.3d 586, 590 (Tex. 2014), the court explained that the Penal Code “combines common-law concepts of assault and battery” under its single definition of assault: the statute’s second definition — threatening another with imminent bodily injury — mirrors traditional common-law assault, while the first and third definitions (causing bodily injury and offensive contact) correspond to separate forms of common-law battery.

The practical takeaway: you will never see “battery” on a Texas charging instrument. Police reports, probable-cause affidavits, bond paperwork, and indictments cite § 22.01 or § 22.02. If you were arrested in Frisco, Plano, Dallas, Denton, or Fort Worth and are trying to look up your charge, the entries to search for are assault – bodily injury, assault by contact, assault by threat, or aggravated assault.

Two reasons the confusion persists. First, many other states still charge assault and battery as separate crimes, so national legal content rarely matches Texas practice. Second, Texas civil courts still recognize assault and battery as related but distinct intentional torts — more on the lawsuit side below.

What Are the Three Types of Assault Under § 22.01?

Section 22.01(a) creates three distinct ways to commit assault. Each carries its own elements the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and each starts at a different punishment level:

Assault by bodily injury — § 22.01(a)(1)

Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to another, including the person’s spouse. This is the old common-law battery. The State must prove (1) a voluntary act, (2) one of the three culpable mental states, and (3) bodily injury — defined by § 1.07(a)(8) as physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition. Class A misdemeanor before enhancements.

Assault by threat — § 22.01(a)(2)

Intentionally or knowingly threatening another with imminent bodily injury. No touch required — this is the common-law assault concept. The threat must be of harm that is near at hand, not conditional or someday: a cocked fist mid-argument qualifies; “you’ll get yours eventually” generally does not. Class C misdemeanor unless elevated.

Assault by contact — § 22.01(a)(3)

Intentionally or knowingly causing physical contact with another when the actor knows or should reasonably believe the other person will regard the contact as offensive or provocative. A chest poke, a shoulder shove, spitting — contact without pain. The second form of common-law battery. Class C misdemeanor unless elevated.

Note the mental-state asymmetry, because it matters at trial: recklessness suffices only for the bodily-injury tier. The threat and contact tiers require intent or knowledge — an accidental or careless bump cannot support an assault-by-contact conviction.

Hypothetical. During a parking-lot argument outside a Frisco restaurant, one driver shoves the other’s shoulder. If the shove causes pain, the State can file Class A assault–bodily injury. If it causes no pain but was plainly unwelcome, the identical shove is Class C assault by contact — a fine-only ticket. And if the driver never touched anyone but raised a fist and said “I will put you down,” that is assault by threat. Three tiers, one statute, very different stakes — which is why the first defense task in any assault case is pinning down which subsection the State actually charged.

What Are the Penalties for Assault and Battery in Texas?

Punishment tracks the tier charged plus any enhancement in § 22.01(b)–(b-3) or § 22.02. The full ladder, with confinement ranges set by Penal Code chapter 12:

One quirk worth knowing: § 22.01(c) also makes a threat-or-contact assault a Class B misdemeanor when a non-participant commits it against a sports participant during a performance or in retaliation for one — the “fan rushes the referee” provision. Fine caps come from §§ 12.21–12.23 for misdemeanors and §§ 12.32–12.34 for felonies. For the felony ladder in context, see our Texas punishment ranges guide.

How Much Injury Counts as “Bodily Injury”?

Far less than most people assume — this is the single most misunderstood element in Texas assault law. “Bodily injury” means physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition. In Garcia v. State, 367 S.W.3d 683, 688 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012), the Court of Criminal Appeals restated the settled rule: any physical pain, however minor, will suffice to establish bodily injury, and a fact finder may infer that a complainant actually felt pain because “people of common intelligence understand pain and some of the natural causes of it.”

That has two hard consequences for the defense. First, the State does not need photographs, medical records, or a visible mark — testimony that a slap stung, or circumstances from which a jury can infer that it did, covers the element. Second, the line between a fine-only Class C contact case and a Class A misdemeanor carrying a year of jail exposure often comes down to a single word in the complainant’s statement: whether it hurt. That makes the complainant’s first recorded statements — the 911 call, the body-camera interview, the written affidavit — the most important evidence in the case, and inconsistencies between them a core cross-examination target.

The same definitional structure explains the jump to aggravated assault. “Serious bodily injury” under § 1.07(a)(46) requires injury that creates a substantial risk of death or causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of a body member or organ. Pain alone never gets there — which is why a broken nose, stitches, or a concussion frequently triggers a charging fight over whether the case belongs in misdemeanor or felony court.

When Does an Assault Charge Become a Felony?

Three escalation paths turn a misdemeanor assault into a felony, and they account for most of the assault indictments we see in Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant Counties.

1. Protected complainants — § 22.01(b). Bodily-injury assault becomes a third-degree felony when committed against a public servant performing a duty, certain government contractors, security officers, emergency services personnel, process servers, hospital personnel on hospital property, or a person the actor knew was pregnant. The hospital-personnel and pregnant-victim elevations were added effective September 1, 2023 — recent enough that people who “knew the law” from an earlier case are often surprised by the felony filing. Assault on a peace officer or judge is a second-degree felony under § 22.01(b-2). See assault on a public servant for the lawful-discharge element the State must prove.

2. Family violence — § 22.01(b)(2) and (b-3). A bodily-injury assault against a family member, household member, or dating partner becomes a third-degree felony if the accused has any prior family-violence conviction, or if the assault involved impeding normal breathing or blood circulation — strangulation or suffocation. Strangulation is a felony even on a first arrest, which regularly stuns first-time defendants expecting a misdemeanor. With both a prior and strangulation, § 22.01(b-3) makes it a second-degree felony. Beyond the grade, an affirmative finding of family violence under Code of Criminal Procedure art. 42.013 attaches to even a misdemeanor plea and triggers the federal firearm prohibition in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) plus the state prohibition in Penal Code § 46.04(b) — a lifetime consequence buried inside a “simple” misdemeanor. Our family-violence defense practice covers that landscape in detail.

3. Aggravated assault — § 22.02. Add serious bodily injury or the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon to any assault and the charge becomes a second-degree felony. “Deadly weapon” reaches well past firearms: under § 1.07(a)(17), anything that in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury qualifies — vehicles, boots, bottles. Section 22.02(b) then lifts specific scenarios to first-degree felonies: a deadly weapon plus serious bodily injury in a family-violence case (or a traumatic brain or spine injury causing irreversible paralysis), aggravated assault against a public servant, certain drive-by discharges causing serious bodily injury, and assaults committed as part of a mass shooting. Our dedicated explainer on when an assault becomes a felony in Texas breaks each of these escalation paths down tier by tier.

Neighboring statutes prosecutors charge instead

Assault facts frequently get filed under adjacent statutes, each with different elements and exposure: deadly conduct (§ 22.05, reckless danger or firearm discharge), terroristic threat (§ 22.07, threats placing a person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury), indecent assault (§ 22.012, sexualized contact), and injury to a child, elderly, or disabled individual (§ 22.04, a result-oriented felony with a much lower charging threshold for protected ages). Which statute the State picks drives everything from bond conditions to record-clearing eligibility, so charge selection is a defense issue, not just a prosecution one.

What Defenses Work Against an Assault Charge?

Defenses in assault cases cluster around four lanes; which one fits depends on the subsection charged and the evidence the State actually has.

• Self-defense and defense of others — Penal Code ch. 9. Section 9.31 justifies force when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes it immediately necessary to protect against another’s use or attempted use of unlawful force; § 9.33 extends the justification to protecting a third person. Texas imposes no duty to retreat on a person lawfully present who did not provoke the encounter and is not engaged in criminal activity. Raising the issue shifts the burden: once some evidence supports it, the State must disprove the justification beyond a reasonable doubt. See our self-defense practice page for how the claim is built.
• Consent — § 22.06. The complainant’s effective consent, or the actor’s reasonable belief in it, is a defense when the conduct did not threaten or inflict serious bodily injury — the mutual-combat provision most people have never heard of.
• Missing mental state or missing element. Accidental contact defeats the contact tier, which requires intent or knowledge. Conditional or future-tense statements defeat the “imminent” requirement of the threat tier. And where pain is the only injury theory, the absence of any contemporaneous complaint of pain undercuts the bodily-injury element.
• Credibility and motive. Assault prosecutions are routinely built on one witness. Custody disputes, breakups, and intoxicated cross-accusations generate documented motives to fabricate; inconsistencies across the 911 audio, scene statements, and later affidavits give a jury concrete reasons to doubt. Where the complainant recants, prosecutors may still proceed — but the recantation, properly preserved, remains powerful impeachment.

A practice note on self-defense: asserting it concedes the contact happened, so the choice between a justification defense and an element-based defense has to be made early and deliberately. Photograph your own injuries, save messages, and get witness contact information to your lawyer before memories harden — the justification case is usually won or lost on what was preserved in the first two weeks.

What Happens After an Assault Arrest in North Texas?

The procedural spine is the same across the metroplex. After arrest, a magistrate must give the art. 15.17 warnings and set bond, generally within 48 hours. In family-violence arrests the magistrate can also issue an emergency protective order under Code of Criminal Procedure art. 17.292 — an order that can bar you from your own home and children for 31 to 91 days, and that issues whether or not the complainant wants it. Bond conditions in assault cases commonly include no-contact provisions and, in felony cases, GPS monitoring. Violating a condition is a separate jailable problem even if the underlying case later collapses.

From there, Class C citations are prosecuted in municipal or justice-of-the-peace courts. Class A and B assaults proceed by information in the county courts at law. Felony assaults go to a grand jury for indictment and then to a district court. Discovery flows through art. 39.14 — the Michael Morton Act — which obligates the State to produce offense reports, recordings, and exculpatory material on request.

County texture matters. In Collin County, misdemeanor and felony assault dockets both run through the Collin County Courthouse (the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building) at 2100 Bloomdale Road in McKinney, while Frisco-issued Class C citations start in Frisco Municipal Court. Dallas County criminal dockets — misdemeanor and felony — operate out of the Frank Crowley Courts Building, and Dallas County maintains dedicated family-violence courts that handle those cases on specialized dockets. Tarrant County assault cases are heard at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth, and Denton County cases at the Denton County Courts Building. Filing rhythms, diversion programs, and protective-order practice differ enough between the four that venue is one of the first strategic facts we establish. The first 72 hours are covered step-by-step in what happens after an assault arrest.

Can You Still Be Sued for Battery in Civil Court?

Yes — and this is where the word “battery” still lives in Texas. Civil courts have recognized assault and battery as intentional torts for well over a century, and City of Watauga itself was a civil case about handcuffing. A criminal acquittal does not bar a civil suit, because the burdens differ: beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court, preponderance of the evidence in civil court. The reverse is also true — paying a civil settlement does not resolve a pending criminal charge.

The overlap matters for defense strategy. Anything said in the criminal case — testimony, plea paperwork, even apology letters written for mitigation — can surface in a later civil suit, and a guilty plea to bodily-injury assault is close to conclusive in the tort case. Where civil exposure is realistic (bar fights with medical bills, neighbor disputes, workplace incidents), the criminal defense has to be run with the second case in view: how the criminal matter resolves often determines whether the civil claim is worth bringing at all.

Can an Assault Charge Be Dismissed or Cleared From Your Record?

Dismissals happen for the reasons dismissals always happen — proof problems, suppression, uncooperative or incredible witnesses, or negotiated outcomes — but the arrest record does not erase itself. Until an expunction order issues, the arrest remains visible to background checks even after a dismissal.

The record-clearing map for assault, briefly. Acquittals and qualifying dismissals support expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A. Convictions cannot be expunged. Deferred adjudication on a Class A or B assault can support an order of nondisclosure under Government Code chapter 411, subchapter E-1 — unless the case carries an affirmative family-violence finding, which the nondisclosure statutes exclude. That exclusion is the quiet reason a family-violence deferred is a far heavier outcome than it appears: complete the supervision flawlessly and the record still cannot be sealed.

One genuinely favorable wrinkle sits at the bottom of the ladder: a Class C assault resolved by deferred disposition ends in dismissal, and that dismissal is expunction-eligible. Handled correctly, a Class C assault-by-contact citation can leave no public record at all — which is exactly why fighting a borderline bodily-injury case down to a Class C, rather than pleading to a “cheap” Class A, can be the most valuable move in the case. The mechanics are laid out in our expunction vs. nondisclosure guide and the record-sealing practice page.