Tuesday, February 24, 2009
UPDATED: Texas House Bill would make spitting, urinating on a person punishable by a year in jail
Updated 03:17 p.m., February 24, 2009
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UPDATE: Evidently, writing this post at 2:25 in the morning and saving it for later publication as we did, we got a key proviso backward, thanks to the fact that our tired eyes didn't catch the word "actor" in a key place in the legislation. The bill enhances penalties for bodily fluid offenses if they are done by a person in authority like a police officer, etc. Rep. Pitts' staff tells us that the bill was introduced in response to this. We'll make that correction below. — VL
A bill by State Rep. Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) would make spitting (or urinating, throwing feces, secreting vaginal fluid, semen or or blood) on another person without their consent a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail. Doing the same to a minor or police officer would increase the penalty to that of a felony. Police officers and other persons in authority causing victims to come in contact with bodily fluids without their consent would also face stiffer penalties.
At first glance, the bill, which also includes penalties for causing a person to come into contact with the fluids of a person or animal for the purposes of sexual gratification without their consent, appears to address the 35-year prison sentence a Dallas homeless man with HIV received in 2008 for spitting on a police officer; he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Upon close examination, it is evident the bill does no such thing:
(f) If conduct constituting an offense under this section also constitutes an offense under another section of this code, the actor may be prosecuted under either section or under both sections.
Not only does this not address the situation that arose from the 2008 incident, it creates a constitutional dilemma because it allows an actor to be charged with two different criminal offenses under two separate statutes for the same crime. Thus, the bill appears to violate the “double jeopardy” exception created by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which disallows being punished more than one time for the same offense.
For example, if an actor raped a woman and urinated on her during the course of the rape, under Pitts’ bill, he could be charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault (or Sexual Assault, depending on the exact circumstances of the assault) and Assault with Bodily Fluids, even though the urination is essentially part of the assault. Technically, even if the actor didn’t urinate on the woman, if he sustained an orgasm and deposited seminal fluid into the woman, he could be charged with both sexual assault and assault with bodily fluids because his semen came in contact with the woman without her permission although, once again, the bodily fluid contact is a fruit of the primary offense–the sexual assault.
It doesn’t get better from there. If a teenager was charged with sexual assault for having sex with his girlfriend because she was under the age of consent, he could also be charged with assault with bodily fluids either for the deposit of semen or if they engaged in mutual urination because the girl wasn’t technically legally able to give her consent.
Luckily (and we say this with tongue planted firmly in cheek), since the bill does require that a person must display the “intent to assault, harass, or alarm” another person with the bodily fluid contact, persons who might cause another person to come in contact with the bodily fluids of another person or animal without their consent in any of the following situations should be protected from prosecution:
• accidental urinal backsplash
• misguided stream while writing one’s name in the snow
• one homeless person accidentally urinating on a sleeping homeless person
• someone who forgot to wash their hands after a visit to the restroom
• sperm bank employees with a full tray of samples who round corners too quickly and run into other people, spilling samples all over them
• people shoveling out barns who have bad aim and end up covering someone in a large pile of animal dung
• a child running to the school bathroom too quickly if they are suffering from a bloody nose
• anyone who doesn’t scoop their dog’s poop fast enough and has a jogger step in said poop before it could be scooped.
• camera and sound crew at movie studios recording pornographic motion pictures
• infants who like to dig in their diapers and wipe the contents thereof on whomever happens to walk by their playpen next
• the victim of a dismembering industrial accident that cuts a major artery, causing blood to spray everyone in a 10 foot radius
How far will this bill make it? It’s tough to say. I tend to believe that the double jeopardy issues here will at least result in a committee substitute to remove the “either/or” language. However, it could result in a complete scrapping of the bill if legislators would prefer to continue to allow deadly weapons prosecutions in bodily fluid cases related to communicable diseases.
Oh, what would a session of the legislature be without bills addressing urine and feces…..
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Comments
Pavel Lishin Verified
So, is this really a frequent enough problem to warrant a whole new law?
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Scott Doyle Verified
lol @ without their consent. How in the world do you affirm someone's consent for urine and spit?
Guess it would turn into a she-said, she-said sorta thing. wink
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Scott Doyle Verified
Let's not even get started on the lack of consent for secreting vaginal fluid on someone. Yowsa.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Pavel Lishin Verified
How in the world do you affirm someone's consent for urine and spit?
Same way you'd affirm someone's content for ejaculating in or on them, I guess?
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Jason Rice Verified
Feature request:
Ability to erase even the scarred memory of some threads.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Scott Doyle Verified
First, I'd like to point out Pavel's use of "content" rather than "consent". Very important distinction in this thread, if I must say so.
Second, J-Rizzie...if there was ever a time to direct Ms. J-Rizzie to PegNews, I'd vouch for now being it.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Travis Bush Verified
Looks like you'll have to find new mating rituals, Doyle.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
jtmbls Anonymous
The legal ramifications of this are huge. I would really encourage Doyle and Pavel (since they seem to be the most at risk) to put their heads together and come up with some sort of consent form that they could pull out on a first date for a girl to sign. Accidents do happen after all. So, it might scare off a girl or twenty...Better to be safe than sorry, don’t you think?
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Jason Rice Verified
Finally a worse train wreck than the Cesar Chavez threads.
Fearful and loathesome, but can't turn away.
I find comfort in the knowledge that its existence probably precludes ScoDo's genetic replication.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Pavel Lishin Verified
Accidents do happen after all.
That's why no consent form is necessary! My apartment has many bookshelves, with many heavy amnesia-causing precariously balanced on top.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Scott Doyle Verified
could pull out on a first date
Why the hell wouldn't I? Hardly know her!
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
jtmbls Anonymous
Oh geez...And here I promised myself I wasn't going to comment on this thread. Damn my inner 12 year old!!!
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
chriss Anonymous
In this day and age of economic crisis, ya'd really think they'd find something more constructive on which to waste their time.
8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
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