Quote:
Originally posted by Rich Ives
This is sports. It may be a murky area which does require additional legislation. You can't just make a statement that battery is already illegal because:
A hockey body check, footbal tackle or block, etc. is NOT an illegal act in the appropriate sport but WOULD be if someone did it to a person walking down the street. In fact, penalties for on the field, against the rules, and sometimes injury causing acts, are routinely handled on the field, not in a court. No one gets arrested for using a knee-wrecking chop block or for hitting a batter with a pitch.
In baseball in fact, no one gets arrested for malicious contact - just ejected from the game.
It isn't necessarily that clear.
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Granted that it "isn't necessarily that clear", Rich, that doesn't alter the fact of Jim's position that the rules already exist to deal with the problem. What needs altering is the MINDSET which prevents these things from being dealt with under the current legislation. As you say, a lot of things happen on the field/diamond/court that would not be tolerated by society elsewhere. The MINDSET is that people put themselves in the way of these otherwise unacceptable actions when they sign on to play the game. To a certain extent that's true, but there are also lots of actions which are illegal in the sports involved too.
People seem to feel that punishment for illegal acts by the sports should not be followed up with punishment by the courts, because that would be a form of DOUBLE JEOPARDY for a single offense. I prefer to think of it as an appeal of the sentence to a higher authority by the aggrieved party! If you deliberately hit an umpire on the diamond you might be banned from the sport for life. Is that an appropriate or sufficient punishment? I don't think so, personally. If that were to happen to me I wouldn't think twice about pressing charges for criminal assault AND suing for damages in a civil court! The fact that I have chosen to enter the field as an official shouldn't operate to open me up for criminal assault or preclude me from seeking the civil remedies normally available to me elsewhere.
Officials seem to feel that, because the game specifies a punishment for an illegal act, they have no recourse to other means. Not true. If you are assaulted in a way that deprives you of your income, or that permanently alters your life style, behaviour or appearance, any punishment the game offers is NOT going to compensate you for what you have suffered. The game can only deal with the illegality according to its own rules. There is no opportunity for those rules to specify criminal penalties or civil damages. You have to have civil recourse at least. I don't see why that shouldn't also apply to criminal recourse. It only takes one conviction to set that precedent. We are starting to see that taking place even now. Assault a football referee on television and you WILL be charged with criminal assault. The MINDSET is changing, IMHO for the better. Participation in sport should NOT be a licence to behave contrary to society's mores.
We can easily accept that it is illegal to shoot or stab someone on the field of play. Why should things be different simply because the weapon of choice is a body part such as a fist, a knee or a head? Where criminal acts in sport are concerned, the question revolves around the intent to cause injury rather than simply to play the game and is properly decided in the courts NOT by a sporting body.
Cheers,
[Edited by Warren Willson on Feb 27th, 2001 at 01:59 PM]