Felony Assault With a Dangerous Weapon Complaint Denied at Clerk’s Hearing

Our client, a lawful permanent resident, faced a potential felony charge of assault with a dangerous weapon after a road-rage incident.

The allegations were serious. Police alleged that, during a confrontation with another truck driver, our client pointed a gun in the other driver’s direction. If a criminal complaint issued, our client would have been placed into criminal proceedings on a felony charge carrying potential state-prison exposure and serious immigration consequences.

But seriousness is not the same thing as sufficiency.

At the clerk-magistrate hearing, Attorney Murat Erkan argued that the allegations were too thin and underdeveloped to justify issuing a felony criminal complaint. The defense emphasized the surrounding circumstances: our client had no desire to hurt anyone, was under unusual stress because his family had been displaced from their home during remediation work, believed the other driver had been aggressively tailgating him, cooperated with police, had an active LTC, and immediately expressed remorse.

Just as importantly, our client had already shown he took the issue seriously. Before the hearing, he began taking steps on his own to improve his conflict-resolution skills and address the stressors that contributed to the incident. That was part of the defense strategy: not to minimize the concern, but to show the clerk that criminal prosecution was unnecessary because the client understood the seriousness of what happened and was already doing the work to make sure it never happened again.

The clerk agreed and declined to issue the criminal complaint.

The result spared our client from being forced into criminal proceedings on a felony allegation that could have threatened not only his record, but also his ability to remain in the United States with his family.