No Spit

A criminal conviction was affirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court

 As Michael Day’s marriage dissolved, the family home became increasingly tense, until one night Day came home, screamed in his wife’s face, and spat in her eye. Four 911 calls later, Day was arrested. He was subsequently convicted of disorderly conduct based on “fighting.” Here, he asks us to interpret the disorderly conduct statute’s “fighting” subsection to require both a public disturbance and a physical altercation, claiming the State failed to prove either element.

Guided by well-established principles of statutory interpretation, we conclude that the “fighting” subsection does not contain a public disturbance element but does require a physical  altercation. Still, Day’s intentional spitting provided sufficient evidence of a physical altercation. We thus affirm his disorderly conduct conviction.

The court interpreted the statute and considered application of the rule of lenity

But even under our narrow interpretation of “fighting,” Day’s intentional, point-blank spitting on M.D. constitutes sufficient evidence to support his conviction. After Day berated M.D. for ten minutes, he leaned over the bed where she was lying and deliberately spat in her face. Some of the spit entered her eye, forcing her to wipe it away. A reasonable factfinder certainly could have found Day’s conduct constituted a physical altercation.

 The court thus “affirm[ed]  Day’s conviction for B-misdemeanor disorderly conduct. (Mike Frisch)