He can get the time if he *thinks* the spit can transfer AIDS. Impossibility is not a defense to intent.

Good point 5:30. Also, liquid expelled forcefully from the oral cavity does not necessarily contain only saliva (blood is the most likely HIV-carrying culprit but there could be other stuff in there too).

5:30, nice try but you're totally wrong. He's charged wtih assault with a deadly weapon--not attempted murder. Shooting at someone with a gun you think is loaded but isn't might be attempted murder, but it's not assault with a deadly weapon, because it's not a deadly weapon.

Didn't I just read that there's a new, faster HIV test that samples saliva? If you can test for the presence of the virus in saliva why couldn't you spread it with saliva?

"Campbell, who was convicted of harassment of a public servant, has a history of spitting at police officers and biting fellow jail inmates."

Wow, damn shame he's going to be kept away from the rest of society for a decade or three.

"Campbell, who was convicted of harassment of a public servant, has a history of spitting at police officers and biting fellow jail inmates."

Wow, damn shame he's going to be kept away from the rest of society for a decade or three.

Good. He can mark his time in confinement by counting down his T cells.

does the government have to p ay for his aids treatment? cuz that would be bullshit

"Campbell, who was convicted of harassment of a public servant, has a history of spitting at police officers and biting fellow jail inmates."

Wow, damn shame he's going to be kept away from the rest of society for a decade or three.

5:59, why do you assume that testability is inextricably linked with contagiousness?

"He can get the time if he *thinks* the spit can transfer AIDS. Impossibility is not a defense to intent."

I'm a voodoo practitioner from New Orleans. I think my voodoo doll can kill the person it represents if I stab a needle into the doll's neck. I want to kill you, and I make a voodoo doll representing you. I stab a needle into its neck intending to kill you. I also inform you that I am so trying to kill you. You are not affected. I am not guilty of attempted murder.

5:59 - Saliva, like the rest of your body, contains detectable antibodies, but lacks viral concentrations that would be high enough to infect. But the problem would arise if his mouth contains some other substance, such as blood or semen.

Spit, and all bodily fluids of an HIV-positive person, contains trace amounts of the virus. It is highly unlikely, but within the conceivable realm of possibility, that spit could transmit the virus. Kissing an HIV-positive person on the mouth is not considered dangerous because ingesting the virus is harmless (eating HIV-infected meat is not that dangerous unless you have open cuts or sores in your mouth) and your own spit is a disinfectant. However, spit in the eye is worse because the membrane is thin and the digestive juices are absent in the eye. Bottom line: you can get HIV from spit. 7:15: it lacks concentrations high enough to infect on average, but the presence of any viral particle is theoretically enough.

"Impossibility is not a defense to intent."

Assault is an attempted battery coupled with PRESENT ABILITY. The elements are conjunctive.

Wow. I can't believe I remember that from the Bar Exam.

Bar/BRI rocks.

Too bad our constitution frowns on summary execution...

5:26, you needn't "feel sorry" for someone in order for them to have the right to live. Get off your high horse.

The amount of ignorance w/in the comments to this thread is detestable. However you feel about this particular defendant, it gives you no right to demean an entire class of extremely unfortunate, ill people.

I have friends who are HIV+ and I don't think twice about hugging or kissing them because I've educated myself on the risks inherent in those activities -- which, by the way, is ZERO.

To argue that there's a possibility his spit contained dangerous substances capable of transmitting the virus is far-fetched at the very least. Saliva kills HIV, which is why the incidence of getting HIV through oral sex is extremely low (and some researchers hesitate to say there has ever been a documented case of infection via oral sex only). Exposure to air for a brief period of time also kills HIV.

Assuming that there was blood mixed in w/ his saliva, it is *possible* that a risk exists if the blood hit an open sore in the officer's mouth or other port of entry into the bloodstream. There is virtually ZERO risk if the contaminant was semen (and how would the defendant have kept semen in his mouth during this episode, only to expel it at the officer at the most opportune time?) because the saliva in his mouth would have likely killed the virus before being ejected towards the officer.

This decision smacks of simple AIDS-bias, pure and simple. No surprise that it comes out of Texas.

to make a slight correction to 11:14, saliva does not kill HIV, it retards the viruses ability to reproduce itself.

even if the virus were to enter the officer (the membrane tissue of an eye is much thinner and more susceptible than the mouth so it is possible) it would be impotent and infection could not occur i.e. there would be no invasion by and multiplication of pathogenic microorganisms, which produce tissue injury and progress to overt disease.

with that said, medicine is not an exact science so there may exist 1 out of 100,000 cases (an arbitrary #, but you get the point) where someone MAY have been infected from saliva but it is impossible to police a person's habits and there may be other explanations for infection.

So a guy who is poor and sick and probably mentally ill spits at a cop and the best your pathetic society can come up with is 35 years in the slammer. Your society is incapable (and as the sad, pathetic comments on this string demonstrate)uninterested in looking after its less fortunate. If there is any good out of all of this, it is that it will cost you American taxpayers more to house him in prison than it would to have treated him with compassion and humanity.

What is sad is that you were once a proud country; a country that many others looked up to. Now after 7 years of Bush, the rest of the world looks upon you with contempt and even outrage. You lock up more people per capita than any other country in the world yet you have millions unable to get basic health care.

Land of the free, home of the brave? I don't think so. Yahoos and yobs is what you are!
And the comments on this site demonstrate that in spades.

A ridiculous verdict and sentence. The chances of contracting AIDS from spit in the eye are virtually nil. In the mouth even less so. Clearly this a case of bigotry towards people with HIV (and, I suspect, much of THAT bigotry has it's roots in homophobia, as AIDS is still largely perceived as a "gay" disease).

It's a disgrace that a court of law in the US would hand down a verdict like this in 2008.

Almost as disturbing are some of the comments on this list. When did stupidity, ugliness and a lack of compassion become American values?

I want to start an effort to have this verdict overturned.
Anyone have any constructive ideas on steps to take toward this goal?

Truly a shameful verdict.

The oral to oral transmission is close to zero, because you are dealing with the interactions of 2 salivas - the infected person and the target. The eye doesn't have such protective film, so you are dealing with only 1 barrier - the infected person's saliva. God knows what kind of sores this guy has in his mouth.