What Happens After an Arrest Following a Public Fight

Attorney Answer

The likely base charge from a fistfight is battery, and the single most useful thing anyone can do in the first days is preserve the restaurant's video before it is overwritten.

NMSA 1978 § 30-3-4 is New Mexico's battery statute and is the offense a physical fight ordinarily produces. Depending on how badly someone was hurt and whether any object was used as a weapon, the State can charge something more serious than simple battery, so the arrest paperwork and the criminal complaint — not the arrest itself — will tell you what she is actually facing.

Self-defense is available in New Mexico, but do not expect to find it in a statute. It is not codified; the standard comes from the uniform jury instructions and from case law. That has a practical consequence: whether her conduct was reasonable, and whether she was a willing participant in a mutual fight rather than someone defending herself, will be argued on the facts of what the video and the witnesses show. It is not a box that gets checked at the police station.

A fast-food restaurant's surveillance system typically overwrites itself in days or weeks. Once that footage is gone it is gone, and in a fight case where everyone tells a different story, it is usually the only neutral evidence there is.

What you can do

1. She should say nothing about the incident to police, to jail staff, or on recorded jail calls. Jail phone calls are recorded and are routinely used at trial. 2. Get the case number and the criminal complaint so you know the actual charge, not what anyone said at the scene. 3. Today, send a written request to the McDonald's store manager and to the franchise owner asking that all surveillance footage from that date and time be preserved, and keep a copy of what you sent. A lawyer can follow with a formal preservation letter. 4. Identify every witness you can name, with phone numbers, and any bystander who recorded on a phone, and give those names to your attorney. Preserving who saw what is useful; writing out your own account of the incident is not — give that to your lawyer verbally. Ask them to save the video without editing it. 5. Photograph her injuries now and again in a few days as bruising develops, and keep any medical records. Injuries to her are what support a self-defense account. 6. If she is in custody, find out the date of her first appearance and make sure she has counsel by then. If she cannot afford one, the public defender is appointed at that hearing. 7. Understand that you cannot file motions or make decisions for her. You can gather and preserve evidence and hand it to her lawyer, and that is genuinely valuable.