# Legality of stabbing someone with a syringe **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2009, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041 "2009-11-02T12:40:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Random\_Design](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@Random\_Design](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Design)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/1 "2009-11-02T12:40:42Z")
Is it a crime to inject someone with a syringe, without their consent? If the syringe contained HIV+ blood, how complicated does it become? If you infect someone with HIV on purpose, perhaps with some less violent method, is it considered a crime? Do note- I am not HIV+ and have no intention of infecting anyone with anything, just curious as to how the law would deal with this. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/2 "2009-11-02T12:49:15Z")
Assault and battery at the very least. If you are intentionally trying to infect a person, then up to deadly weapon level. I am not a lawyer or in law enforcement, but why in the world would you think it could not be a crime to stick a person with a needle without their consent? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/3 "2009-11-02T13:08:12Z")
People have been convicted of murder for purposely infecting other people with HIV. Some places have even enacted laws for this particular intent to kill people so there is no chance they can wrangle out of it with the laws that were in place. [Here is a case you can follow to see what the teacher gets charged with.](http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_10/node_37/node_82/2009/10/27/125660778370892.shtml) I doubt there will be attempted murder charges, but there was hand washing water in the syringe. She’ll probably get at least the China equivalent of child endangerment or abuse charges. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/4 "2009-11-02T13:40:05Z")
IANAL but sticking someone with even an empty syringe is certainly assault and battery. Even [failure to disclose HIV to a consensual sex partner is illegal](http://www.thebody.com/content/art32643.html) in California. The same article also says, “Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, more than 300 people have been criminally prosecuted for exposing another person to HIV. Only a fraction of these cases involve exposure through consensual sex. (The others involve activities such as biting, scratching and spitting, or violent sex crimes such as rape or forcible sodomy.)” So injecting someone with HIV virus to infect them is certainly a crime. What crime would vary by jurisdiction. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/5 "2009-11-02T14:19:54Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > People have been convicted of murder for purposely infecting other people with HIV. Some places have even enacted laws for this particular intent to kill people so there is no chance they can wrangle out of it with the laws that were in place. > > [Here is a case you can follow to see what the teacher gets charged with.](http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_10/node_37/node_82/2009/10/27/125660778370892.shtml) I doubt there will be attempted murder charges, but there was hand washing water in the syringe. She’ll probably get at least the China equivalent of child endangerment or abuse charges. Wow. Why would someone even think of doing that to small children, much less actually do it? ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/6 "2009-11-02T15:55:55Z")
Even without a syringe, purposely infecting someone with HIV would be the same of doing so with anthrax or smallpox. HIV has its own stigma in our minds that makes it hard to think about without bringing the baggage along. It’s a virus with a high mortality rate. IANAL but attempted murder wouldn’t be a stretch. If there aren’t defined laws for such things, there ought to be. Consider parents who purposely get their kids infected with chicken pox (a virus) so they’ll get the immunity while young. If there were “biological assault” laws, they could get pinched on them. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/7 "2009-11-02T16:16:32Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > If there aren’t defined laws for such things, there ought to be. Consider parents who purposely get their kids infected with chicken pox (a virus) so they’ll get the immunity while young. If there were “biological assault” laws, they could get pinched on them. Only in the same way that parents could be pinched for physical assault for grabbing their kids to pull them away from a busy street. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/8 "2009-11-03T07:23:55Z")
Re: the OP, why would you think that _wouldn’t_ be a crime? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-stabbing-someone-with-a-syringe/516041/9 "2009-11-03T10:07:49Z")
Here’s an excellent site detailing a lot of the cases involving deliberate HIV infection, and the laws in the US and elsewhere about deliberately passing on HIV: [http://www.avert.org/criminal-transmission.htm](http://www.avert.org/criminal-transmission.htm) > [@](#): > > As of the end of 2008, 36 states in America had prosecuted HIV positive individuals for criminal transmission or HIV exposure, with many having laws specifically mentioning HIV. Some states punish those convicted of offences such as prostitution or rape more severely if the person knows they have HIV. Spitting or emitting HIV-infected bodily fluids at another person while in prison is also an offence in some states. A sample of the laws are below: > > Alabama – Engaging in activities likely to transmit an STD is a class C misdemeanour. > California – Engaging in uninformed, unprotected sexual activity (exception for consent) with the intent to infect the other person is a felony punishable by up to 8 years in prison. > Colorado – Committing or soliciting prostitution with knowledge of being HIV positive are class 5 and 6 felonies. > Florida – Unlawful for person with HIV, with knowledge both of their infection and risk of sexual transmission, to have sex without disclosure and consent having taken place. > Michigan – It is a felony to engage in sexual penetration, however slight and regardless of whether semen has been emitted, without informing the other of his/her HIV status. > Missouri – It is a class B felony to expose a person to HIV if defendant knowingly acted in a reckless manner without knowledge and consent through oral, anal or vaginal sex. If complainant becomes infected, the charge is a class A felony. The use of a condom is not a defence. > New York – The applicable part of the law is reckless endangerment in the first degree for engaging in ‘conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person’. > Pennsylvania – The state Superior Court ruled in a 2006 case involving oral sex that HIV positive people who do not disclose their status to their sexual partners can be charged with reckless endangerment. It follows that any kind of unprotected sex without disclosure could be prosecuted. > Texas – HIV transmission cases have been brought to court under aggravated assault laws whereby a person “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly… uses or exhibits a deadly weapon as part of an assault”. As for deliberately injecting someone with HIV, these two guys were sentenced to 50 years in prison and life in prison respectively for doing it: > [@](#): > > **Dr Richard J. Schmidt, 1998** : Richard Schmidt was a doctor from Louisiana, USA, who was accused of infecting his lover, a nurse called Janice Trahan, by injecting her with HIV infected blood. Trahan alleged that Schmidt had injected her with the blood of one of his positive patients in an act of vengeance after she tried to end their relationship. DNA samples of the virus in Trahan’s blood and that of the positive patient in question were found to be very similar, but Schmidt’s defence team insisted that ‘very similar’ was not scientifically accurate enough. HIV rapidly mutates and changes its DNA structure once it enters another person’s body meaning comparisons can be difficult. However, using a new technique called ’ phylogenetics’ (or ‘evolutionary analysis’), scientists were able to determine that Schmidt’s patient was extremely likely to have been the source of the virus found in Trahan. Schmidt was found guilty and sentenced to 50 years. > [@](#): > > **Brian Stewart, December 1998:** Stewart was a medical technician from Illinois who was sentenced to life in prison after deliberately injecting his son with HIV infected blood, allegedly in an effort to kill him and avoid paying child support. He was found guilty after all other suggested sources for the boy’s infection were ruled out. On one occasion Stewart allegedly told the boy’s mother not to bother seeking child support because the child would not live beyond the age of five. On another, he told colleagues that he had “the power to destroy the world… I would inject them with something and they would never know what hit them.”