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State v. Jones, 3 P.3d 142 (N.M. Ct. App. 2000)
- Categories
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- Resource Type
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Court and Agency Decisions and Orders
- Description
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New Mexico court of appeals decision reversing a lower court conviction of an HIV+ individual accused of spitting on an officer. The following is excerpted from the court's opinion: "We acknowledge that spitting or throwing bodily waste may give rise to rational concerns about infection or communicable disease. Defendant Jones threatened as much as he spat upon the officer. However, we have not been cited to any authority, and we know of none, that based criminal liability for battery upon the victims' subjective and unsubstantiated fears that they could develop a disease. To the contrary, the authorities all involve batteries with bodily waste from known carriers of communicable diseaseNeither case before us contains evidence that the accused carried any communicable disease. We will not assume as a matter of law that one has been battered by a harmful disease unless supported by the evidence, especially in the absence of clear legislative intent to make such unsubstantiated apprehension a felony."
- File
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Click here to download this document [ 58.07 kB ]
- Published
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2000-May-25
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