I was arrested on a citizens arrest battery with no evidence

You have several issues - If you were truly only arrested for battery, it would have had to be a citizen's arrest. The officer had no authority to arrest you on his own. If there were threats made - there is the possibility of a Penal Code section 422 (criminal threats) charge being filed against you. That is a "wobbler" and can be either a felony or a misdemeanor. As a felony, it also is a "strike" under California's three strikes law. From here, it's up to the DA to file charges or not. Because it was a citizen's arrest, your neighbor is liable for any false arrest charges and potential civil suit by you to recover your expenses. You would have to show that there was absolutely no basis for the arrest. Your main concern right now is the criminal case. If you haven't already, you want to speak with a criminal defense attorney about your situation. If you lose in the criminal case, there goes any possible civil suit as well. .

First, you have to defend yourself in the criminal case filed against you, if indeed one was or is going to be filed. Your only course of action is to hire a lawyer - do not attempt to defend yourself. If you cannot afford private counsel, a public defender will be provided for you at the time of your first hearing in court. One big advantage of being represented by private counsel is that he/she can intervene early in an effort to have the case dismissed even before charges have been filed. It could very well pay off to have counsel involved as early as absolutely possible. Once case has been filed, it will be more complicated and more expensive to fight the charges in court. Unfortunately, you have fallen victim to the phenomenon known as "he who calls the police first gets the presumption of being a victim." Happens all the time in situations involving verbal altercations. Once you have successfully defended yourself in criminal court, a civil action against your neighbor might be possible, depending upon the evidence which will be revealed in the course of the investigation. Hope this helps, Jacek W. Lentz, Esq. 310.273.1361 www.lentzlawfirm.com

Unfortunately, you can see now how easy it is for someone to be arrested. A "citizen arrest" can take place simply by claiming, "that person did something wrong to me"...period. That said, the case is awfully weak. No pictures, no physical evidence, a complete case of your word versus your neighbor's word. Your attorney is going to have to really drive home how easy it is to make a citizen's arrest to the jury, and exploit the weaknesses to the allegation. As for recouping bail, it depends on how you provided the bond. Did you pay the full amount to the Sheriff's Dept.? If so, you'll get it back at the end. If you paid a bail bondsman a percentage of the bail amount, that percentage is gone, no matter what happens - even if the court releases you "O.R.", which stands for "own recognizance". Lastly, yes, you can file a complaint against the neighbor for filing a false police report...and it certainly wouldn't hurt your case.

I concur with Mr. Dane, but there may be something you should be doing while waiting for the D.A. to decide what to do about your arrest. You can hire a lawyer to contact the D.A. and give him all possible evidence and information about the case to convince him that the complaint was false. Is there any witness to the incident? Ask neighbors. Often shouting gets people looking out their windows. Maybe someone knows you never hit him. The threats are another issue as Mr. Dane mentioned. In my experience, when I have been hired for the limited scope of reviewing the facts and writing to the D.A. to alert him to what a stinker of a case it is, the result is often (but not always) that they won't file charges. Wouldn't that be better than waiting until you are charged and then having to hire a lawyer to provide a complete defense in court? If the case is dropped, you could even petition the court for a "factual innocence" finding that will seal and then actually destroy your arrest record as well. For future reference, it is extremely unwise (and a criminal act) to utter any threats of harm to anyone, no matter how mad you were. Even if someone attacks you and you have to use force on him to defend yourself, that STILL does not necessitate uttering any threats, right?