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Today's Poll: Should it be a more serious crime to hit a person 65 or older?

By Howard B. Owens
Peter O'Brien

Different punishments for different classes of victims? I thought we were all equal....

Assault is Assault. The class of victim doesn't matter. This is as dumb as hate crime (thought crime) legislation.

Jun 22, 2012, 11:32am Permalink
C. M. Barons

This situation reminds me of a local school district's student behavior regulations. There was a store across the road from the school that students were not supposed to visit during school hours. Instead of simply barring students from leaving school property without permission when classes were in session, the language in the handbook specifically identified the store by name. Each time the store changed name, the handbook had to be revised.

Laws regarding assault could be written describing disparities (health, disability, size, eyesight, physical strength, martial arts training, etc) that apply to all ages and still punish crimes against the elderly.

...Without appearing arbitrary. ...Or pandering politically to a certain segment of society.

My point is that laws can be written providing recourse for the elderly without age as sole criteria and simultaneously afford like recourse to assault victims who are children, ill, disabled or otherwise outmatched by an attacker.

Jun 22, 2012, 11:52am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Chris, I see your point, but I also see where this approach might run into a problem.

Let's say the law says it's a higher class felony if the aggressor has a significant physical advantage over the victim.

Well, who makes that call? There is a line that gets crossed somewhere, and we can all recognize when we think the line has been crossed, but each of us probably places that line in a different place and in different place in different circumstances.

That approach opens laws to even more interpretation than exists now.

Jun 22, 2012, 12:36pm Permalink
C. M. Barons

Point taken, Howard, but I refer back to Doug's comment in a separate thread. If the law defines elderly as 65 or older, what about the unfortunate who is 64 and 11 months old? There are diseases that prematurely age humans such as Alzheimer's, heart disease, COPD, Arteriosclerosis / atherosclerosis, osteoporosis and diabetes. It would not be so difficult to write a law defining a more severely punished class of assault based on victim's health condition, developmental limitations and disparities in ability to defend oneself. A judge or jury should be able to reason between simple assault and assault upon someone of diminished capacity without opening up Pandora's box. We distinguish between assault and assault with a deadly weapon. Interpretations of deadly weapon have to take into account bricks, baseball bats and martial arts training. I don't see where this has to be any less clear in definition.

Jun 22, 2012, 3:38pm Permalink

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