Rep. Mosely has introduced HB 1220 which would increase the penalty for a battery conviction if the battery results in bodily injury to a utility worker. The penalty would go from a Class D felony instead of a Class B misdemeanor.
Battery is “knowingly or intentionally touching another person in a rude, insolent, or angry manner.” It becomes a Class A misdemeanor if it results in bodily injury or if it’s committed (without causing bodily injury) against a law enforcement officer, correctional officer, firefighter, or the state chemist. It gets even more serious and is raised to a Class D felony if it causes bodily injury to (among others) a law enforcement officer, a person under 14 years old, a mentally or physically disabled person by someone caring for that person, a repeat conviction for battery on the same person, a correctional officer, a school employee, or a correctional officer. Utility workers would get added to this list.
So, if you’re mad, don’t beat up on the DISH-TV guy. Maybe call up a plumber instead.
Having recently heard in the news where utility workers have been attacked while trying to install remote-read electric meters by people who objected to them on grounds of everything from the radio transmitters causing cancer to them being landing beacons for black helicopters, I can see a need for a law like this.
One woman attacked the crew installing the meter saying that they were “trespassing”. Wonder how she thinks her old meter got read all these years?
Why define it so narrowly, though? Why is it less offensive for me to push my neighbor than a utility worker or a police officer?
If you see a “need” for a law like this, what’s to stop the irate consumer from realizing that he’s already down for a felony, so why not finish the job?
Quit meddling.
This to me re-raises part of the whole debate over “hate crimes”, because questions of interior motive probably play more of a role there, those who opposed such laws often say that one individual ought not to be considered “worth” more than another. I fully appreciate whatever unique risks such workers might have, but wonder about the logic/criteria employed in selecting this partular situation? I think that’s along the same lines as what Jason is thinking.
There must be greater protection against what can become a felony, lest that word lose its meaning and be ignored.
We have far too many “felonies” in America, and the term seems to have no consistency or fixed meaning. Under our shallow legal system, speeding could be a felony merely by statutory fiat.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! Felons can’t own firearms, can’t vote (in some places) and are extremely lucky to get a job anymore. It’s a way to disenfranchise multiple generations and fracture the constitutional system without so much as breaking a sweat. Welcome back to the 900’s, the Feudal system is alive and well and slowly coming soon to you.
This proposed statute seems to run counter to the attempts to modify the criminal code and reduce penalties for minor offenses, inject proportionality into sentencing, and save the state money in prison costs.
And this proposed law, coupled with the recent Indiana Supreme Court case that defines bodily injury as any touching causing “pain”, however slight, is an open invitation to prosecutorial abuse.