If charged with committing a domestic violence offense, check to see whether a conviction may be sustained under the convicting statute by mere offensive touching. Such offensive touching is arguably not a crime of violence, a domestic violence offense, or a crime involving moral turpitude. Check the minimum elements required to sustain a conviction by looking to the criminal jury instructions and relevant caselaw, and then check the record of conviction in your clients case to determine whether your client specifically plead to a violent offense.      The Ninth Circuit agreed with the Seventh Circuit in Ye v. INS, 214 F.3d 1128, 1133 (9th Cir. 2000), quoting Solorzano-Patlan v. INS, 207 F.3d 869, 874-875 (7th Cir. 2000), that "the force necessary to constitute a crime of violence [under 18 U.S.C. 16] must actually be violent in nature." In United States v. Belless, 338 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2003), the court noted: "Any touching constitutes 'physical force' in the sense of Newtonian mechanics. Mass is accelerated, and atoms are displaced. Our purpose ... though, is to assign criminal responsibility, not to do physics." See also, Flores v Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 666 (7th Cir. 2003) (Indiana statute prohibiting "rude, insolent or angry" touching that results in bodily injury, but not serious bodily injury, is not necessarily a crime of violence). Battery of a spouse under California Penal Code 243(e), therefore, should not be a crime of violence aggravated felony or domestic violence offense as long as the record of conviction does not establish that the force used was more than mere offensive touching. The same arguments might also be made with respect to Penal Code 243(d) (misdemeanor battery with infliction of bodily injury, however slight).