Legal News

35-Year Prison Sentence for H.I.V.-Positive Spitter

By Dan Slater

Should the saliva of an H.I.V.-positive person be considered a deadly weapon? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says no, but a Dallas jury has said yes.

The significance of the decision: Willie Campbell, a 42 year-old homeless man who allegedly spit in the mouth and eye of a police officer and then taunted him, saying he was H.I.V. positive, was sentenced to 35 years in prison last week for harassing a public servant with a deadly weapon. Here’s a report from the Dallas Morning News, and another from the NYT. (The police officer has not contracted H.I.V.)

According to the reports, in May 2006, a passer-by reported an unconscious man, Campbell, sprawled outside a downtown Dallas building. Campbell tried to fight paramedics and kicked the police officer who arrested him for public intoxication. That’s when Campbell allegedly spat at an officer and said he had H.I.V.

Campbell’s lawyer, Russell Henrichs, told the NYT that his client had been indicted under a habitual-offender statute that increased the penalty to a minimum of 25 years in prison, because he had been convicted of attacking two other officers in a similar manner and biting two inmates, as well as more than two dozen other offenses. Because of the deadly weapon finding Campbell will not be eligible for parole until he has served half his sentence.

Jenni Morse, the prosecutor in the case, said, “You can see why we thought that we needed to get this guy off the streets.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H.I.V. is primarily spread through sexual contact or the exchange of blood. Although there have been rare cases of transmission through severe bites, “contact with saliva, tears or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of H.I.V.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).