Boise convinces jurors contact was incidental, not a crime

Attorney Marija Boise won a quick “not guilty” verdict in a domestic violence trial on July 25, 2024, in Clark County District Court.

The jury deliberated for 12 minutes.

Boise’s client was charged with assault in the fourth-degree domestic violence, a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.

He was arrested in May after his ex-girlfriend called 311, the non-emergency line for services. She told a dispatcher that she had gone to her ex-boyfriend’s residence to confront him about texting other girls, and then he tried to rip her phone out of her hand. During the call, a portion of which was played for the jury, she can be heard telling our client, “You’re f-----, dude.”

Jurors also heard that our client had paid for the phone he was trying to get back, and that the injuries the alleged victim showed to officers – some scratches on her arm – were from a car window. The alleged victim had been inside her car and claimed that our client, from outside her car, had been able to push the window down to try and grab her phone. She said he let go after she pulled out a knife and she suffered a sprained wrist from when he was trying to take the phone.

In closing argument, Boise told jurors that this case was about an aggrieved ex-girlfriend trying to exact her revenge. The evidence clearly showed that any injuries sustained by the alleged victim were incidental to the struggle over the client’s phone and not intentionally caused by the client.

As a community, Boise said, we get to decide that the conduct that occurred between these two parties was normal in the context of an emotional breakup and does not rise to the level of a crime.

If this is the worst thing that happened to two young people during their first serious breakup, Boise said, we can agree that they are going to be just fine.