5 ms·

Assault is punished by law according to physical consequence. If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't.

by hk 18y ago

Assault is punished by law according to physical consequence. If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. There are no physical consequences to being spat on by a healthy person (if they are sick and do so knowingly to infect you, that is completely different). It is an insult, a grotesque one, but an insult none the less, and should be treated as such by law.

gravitycop 18y ago
If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. That is not necessarily true. Commission of verbal assault can land a person in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_... The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
- rudyfink 18y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but I believe this doctrine has essentially not been enforced in recent memory. The subsequent paragraph to the one you quoted steadily showed it being rejected by those who attempted to bring it before the court in the US.
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    There are fresh fighting-words arrest-reports, here: http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested
  - matthavener 18y ago
    the test for assault is that a reasonable person would fear for their safety or life the test for battery is that you harmfully or offensively touched someone or something on them i think spitting would fall under both for most juries..

by hk 18y ago

gravitycop 18y ago

If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. That is not necessarily true. Commission of verbal assault can land a person in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_... The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

rudyfink 18y ago
I am not a lawyer, but I believe this doctrine has essentially not been enforced in recent memory. The subsequent paragraph to the one you quoted steadily showed it being rejected by those who attempted to bring it before the court in the US.
- gravitycop 18y ago
  There are fresh fighting-words arrest-reports, here: http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested
- matthavener 18y ago
  the test for assault is that a reasonable person would fear for their safety or life the test for battery is that you harmfully or offensively touched someone or something on them i think spitting would fall under both for most juries..