Immediate Bodily Harm

Whether by threat or attempt the act must give the apprehension of immediate bodily harm. Bodily harm refers to any unlawful or offensive contact from one person to another. It requires direct contact from the offender to the victim, or contact through a weapon that the offender is wielding. A knife, fists or a club are all examples of weapons that are considered to have direct physical contact. The threat of immediate harm can also come from indirect contact such as by a gun. The contact does not necessarily have to be violent, although it almost always is. Immediate bodily harm is present in a forcible sexual advance, not necessarily to the extent of rape, but possibly through kissing or groping. It is also considered immediately harmful if the assailant attempts to administer poison to another person.

Immediate harm is required for menacing. A threat of delayed harm is not enough for a menacing charge. A delayed threat is criminal, but would be considered under some lesser charge. The general rule of what is immediate is that the harm should be approaching within seconds or minutes of the threat or attempt.

The harm is not necessarily threatened toward the victim, but could be towards a spouse, child or someone else of a close personal relationship. The other person must be physically present when the threat is made, and be in immediate danger of harm from either the offender who made the threat or their accomplice.

Ability to Inflict Harm

A threat or attempt to cause bodily harm is considered menacing even if the offender does not have the visible means of inflicting harm in most states. In some states, the offender must have some apparent method of causing harm to make a valid threat or attempt. In a few states, the offender must also actually possess the means to inflict harm.

For an act to have neither apparent nor actual ability to carry out a threat, the object of the threat must be obviously non threatening. Depending on the situation, it might not matter whether the threat is apparent or not, because it can be argued that an item which proposes no apparent threat would not be able to invoke an apprehension of harm in a person.

If a state requires both actual and apparent threat to commit and assault, then an offender could make a threat that is beyond the victim=s knowledge, such as claiming that he has a gun inside his jacket pointed at the victim.