Posted on 11/04/2021 5:05:28 PM PDT by rickmichaels
Deliberately coughing at someone during the COVID-19 pandemic – even if nothing visible is emitted by the cougher – constitutes a criminal assault, an Alberta court has ruled in what lawyers say may be the world’s first such judicial pronouncement on the novel issue.
It’s already sparking debate about how far Canada’s criminal law should reach.
Judge Heather Lamoureux’s conclusion that “emitting a force consisting of lung-air molecules” qualifies as the use of force under the Criminal Code led her to convict a bar patron who removed his mask and coughed at a waitress.
The incident occurred during a confrontation over the customer’s winnings from a video lottery terminal.
Lamoureux focused on whether the gesture fit into the Criminal Code’s definition of assault as an act where someone “applies force” without another person’s consent.
“Air pressure is a force at the molecular level in the same manner as physical force visible to the naked eye. This is basic science, uncontroverted, and not requiring any expert opinion,” wrote the judge. “Accordingly, when Mr. Pruden engaged in an intentional act of coughing, he was emitting a force consisting of lung air molecules into the atmosphere.”
Others in Canada have pleaded guilty to assault for exhaling at people during COVID. But neither the Crown nor defence could find any case law anywhere in the world where a judge actually ruled at trial on whether such an act qualified as a crime, said defence lawyer David Roper.
“It is an unprecedented decision,” he said. “It has effectively taken a pandemic for the court to come to this decision.”
It’s long been the law in Canada that deliberately spitting on someone can be an assault; the question here was whether emitting invisible particles also amounted to using force, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
Ok. Then someone with HIV having sex with someone who is unaware they have HIV should be criminally charged to the fullest extent.
It is certainly considered bad manners.
“Deliberately coughing at someone during the COVID-19 pandemic – even if nothing visible is emitted by the cougher – constitutes a criminal assault, an Alberta court has ruled in what lawyers say may be the world’s first such judicial pronouncement on the novel issue.”
But amazingly, having sex when you are HIV positive is not.
Prove deliberate and I am fine with that charge. We’ve seen people in the news doing this. I think intentional—to infect someone with anything, even bad breadth—is an assault.
What would farting in someone’s general direction be, attempted murder?
Even Stalin and Hitler didn’t go that far.
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