Well, thanks for the sandisplain, I guess.
No kidding. It really does. I’ve never seen another battery statute with requirements like that for the intent.
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Witness: That man just ran a red light and hit the pedestrian in the crosswalk.
Sigler: Was the driver drunk?
Witness: Yes.
Sigler: Well, then ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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That raises the question: How many battery statutes have you seen?
Here’s one from Wyoming:
(g) A person is guilty of unlawful contact if he: (i) Touches another person in a rude, insolent or angry manner without intentionally using sufficient physical force to cause bodily injury to another; or (ii) Recklessly causes bodily injury to another person.
And here’s one from New Mexico (a state whose laws you may or may not be familiar with):
Battery is the unlawful, intentional touching or application of force to the person of another, when done in a rude, insolent or angry manner.
The Commonwealth of Virginia also uses the same language, both for assault and battery (Va. Code 18.2-57) and specifically for domestic assault and battery (Va. Code 18.2-57.2).
That’s three states not including Indiana.
And here, not from statutes directly but from Judicial and Statutory Definitions of Words and Phrases, Volume 1, are some classic examples gathered a long time ago:
and:
and:
In short, in this context, the word “insolent” has a long history.
Wondered why they’d let a black guy off.
The woman assaulted is Latina.
When some touches someone else and is told to back off and then does so again while making suggestive comments, that’s insolent regardless of the gender or ethnicity of the people involved.
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Ahh even more understandable now, sadly.
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Where is the reaction from the alleged victims? That used to be mandatory, didn’t it? There is the “no comment” from the side of the accused white male office holder. Is that supposed to be good enough? Or did I just miss the part where TPM tried to get one of the four possible “me too” sluts to respond to the case of the Stanfurd swimmer and the… to the famous comedian and his secret drugging… no, no, I mean respond to someone molested by Fratboy McDrunkFace…
D’ohh! That is not right either. It is so hard to keep up. I mean, did it not use to be that a “no comment” from the accused was as important to a story as the need to report the same silence from bachfeigengeshicht politicians with affluenza? Now, we even have reporters saying, unchecked, what their sources “think” instead of what they say they think.
The coal mine is loud with the death screams of a thousand canaries, notes Charlie Pierce, who says the hand basket’s at Warp 7. Muffling even the quietest screams of the helplessly debauched helps spread magical thinking far beyond the bounds of Hogwarts.
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Hill, a Republican,
I would never have guessed…
I am not a lawyer…
… But I’ve served on 2 juries that included the charges of battery. In neither case did the judge instruct us using terms like ‘insolent’ or ‘insubordinate’ or ‘uppity’. I think @tena has a complimentary understanding of this point.
In a reasonable state like CA, battery just involves unwanted or aggressive contact. It does not require an extra component of violating social stratification. There is a difference.
Insolence can be an otherwise proper action directed at a social superior as in ‘How’s it hanging’ from a teenage boy to the principal of his school. It can also be an interaction between equals where one person is ignoring the other person’s rights.
Cervantes above has a long list of states using the insolence language in their statutes.
And that addresses a battery statute…how?
Yes, I actually learned to read before age 61. So your comment directing me to read previous comments is a bit insolent. But not battery. Neither is it battery when a teenage boy sasses the principal. [although we have had many other statutes so that is also a crime].
Clearly groping is battery. From what we are given, this particular case sounds like it was that.
Can you (& @cervantes?) not grasp the point is that battery should not depend on status transgression? Do you not understand we are taking issue with the statute (thus the reason for no prosecution), not that we support groping? But rather that it should not depend on the men in our lives feeling violated.
But please proceed…
It addresses how the word insolence is understood whether used in a battery or assault statute or otherwise. I was trying to point out that the term applies both to status offenses and to interactions between equals. Put another way, insolence between equals is not a status offense.
I fail to see that arguing ignoring the woman’s objections is insolent in any way addresses whether or not the men in our lives feel violated. She felt (and was violated) and that was enough.
Tena and you felt in the basis of your experiences that the statute was something out of the ordinary. Cervantes recited data showing that this usuage has gone on for a long time suggesting the opposite.
There is an element of how each party understood the interaction that determines whether or not something is an offense. If a guy gives a woman a great big beery hug with wandering hands and she wanted that type of hug from him this is not an actionable grope – not assault and battery. Her take matters. But so does his. – if some guy grabs a woman in the belief that she is his wife and gives her a similar hug it lacks the intent to be offensive that some the statutes require by implication – there would be nothing insolent about it – it was simply an accidental mistake.
And none of this depends on how the other men in these women’s live feel about it.
About your [1] and [3]: I am not sure what you mean; therefore cannot comment.
About your [2]: Yes, you can take issue with the statute if you want to; but I didn’t even need to go there because, in my opinion, Hill’s alleged behavior met the requirement for prosecution. I think his alleged actions were both “rude” and “insolent” and I said as much in my first comment above.
Obvious caveat: I may think Hill’s behavior was prosecutable but I’m not the one who investigated the case and weighed the evidence. The prosecutor did, and here’s what he said:
“I did believe them,” he told reporters. “Nonetheless, I decided I didn’t think I could meet my burden” of proof
presumably because:
witnesses gave varying accounts of what happened.
Here is a challenge for you. Instead of spending all your effort proving your fellow posters wrong. Turn it around. Start from thinking about what is right, what was said or expressed. Amplify that to see what you come up with.
Sleep well.