Deadly Conduct

Question: What happens if I’m charged with deadly conduct?

Answer:

Deadly conduct is a misdemeanor offense. There are a couple different ways that someone can commit the offense. One is that you just place someone in eminent danger, serious bodily injury, or death. Another way is discharging a firearm at a car or a home. Those are ways in which you can be charged with this crime. The fact that the gun isn’t loaded isn’t necessarily an affirmative defense. In fact, they’ll presume that that was reckless, and you could end up getting charged and even being convicted because you pointed an unloaded gun at somebody. It’s really important in those cases to get a lawyer to look at the facts, and to see if there’s some defensive issue to it. It’s important to realize, also, that the purpose of the statute about discharging a firearm towards a home or car, was targeting gang violence. Today, I represented somebody many years ago who was cleaning his weapon in his home and it discharged, and went through the wall of his house and hit the neighbor’s house, and they actually charged him with that crime. It’s important to realize that this crime can take many different turns and twists that you can’t anticipate.