State of Ohio v. Constance Reif-Hill, No. 72864, 1998 WL 787389 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 12, 1998)

In this decision, the Ohio Court of Appeals vacated the conviction of Constance Reif-Hill for attempted felonious assault. In 1995, Reif-Hill was voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She behaved in a highly agitated manner and refused to consent to a routine blood drawing stating, among other things, that she had AIDS. She was persuaded to enter the examination room, but when staff members attempted to draw the blood sample, a physical struggle ensued, during which Reif-Hill bit a male staff member. While the staff member was treated and tested negative for HIV, a jury later found Reif-Hill guilty of attempted felonious assault. The Court of Appeals vacated the conviction, finding that the record did not indicate that Reif-Hill acted “knowingly” to cause serious physical harm to the staff member, as required by the relevant statute, because she “never had an HIV infection and the [staff member] never contracted HIV from [the] episode.”