By Kevin Rolph
C.O.A.D. Legislative Committee Chair

As some may have heard, there have been several incidents of Officers being assaulted while off-duty. This serious matter reached a new low in May when we had 2 assaults occur within 10 days of one another. The most troublesome of these occured in Christiana Mall, in a store, in full view of the public and the Officer's family. Fortunately the perpetrator, an ex-inmate that our Officer had removed from DOC property a week before, was apprehended in Wilmington a short time later and initially charged with 2nd Degree Assault (a Felony), 2nd Degree Conspiracy (due to 2 accomplices; another felony), and Harassment (a misdemeanor). Due to the way that the 2nd Degree Assault Statute is currently written, the charge of 2nd Degree Assualt is only applicable if the Officer is assaulted during the course of that Officer's duties. This caused the court to reduce the charge to 3rd Degree Assault, a Misdemeanor. Since the Conspiracy charge follows the Assault charge, it was also reduced to a misdemeanor (3rd Degree Conspiracy). In an effort to correct this, I approached the Department to ask for their support on a Bill to ammend the 2nd Degree Assault Statute (Title 11, Section 612) to extend the protection of the Statute to Officers off-duty as well as on-duty. We recieved the enthusiastic support of Commissioner Taylor for this effort. In addition, the State FOP Lodge, the Delaware State Trooper's Association, and Attorney General Jane Brady also supported this proposed Legislation (Some of you may remember that we supported Ms. Brady in her bid for re-election). The result of this effort was House Bill 233 which reads, in part, as follows: "This Bill will include injuries suffered by Law-Enforcement Officers, including Correctional Officers off-duty, as a result of an attacker identifying them as a Law-Enforcement Officer or in other incidents involving their official perfortmance of duties. Recently a Correctional Officer was attacked in a mall because he had denied visitation to a former inmate during the course of his normal duties. The attack was motivated by revenge." This Bill's Primary Sponsor was Rep. and Speaker of the House Terry Spence. It was Additionally Sponsored by Rep. Lee, and was Co-Sponsored by Sen. Vaughn; Reps. Smith, Atkins, Booth, Boulden, Buckworth, Carey, DiPinto, Ewing, Fallon, Hudson, Lavelle, Lofink, Maier, Oberle, Quillen, Roy, Stone, Thornburg, Ulbrich, Valihura, Wagner, Gilligan, Van Sant, B. Ennis, George, Hall-Long, Houghton, Keeley, Mulrooney, Plant, Schwartzkopf, Viola, Williams; Sens. Adams, McDowell, Blevins, Cook, DeLuca, Henry, Venables, Bonini, Cloutier, Connor, Copeland, and Simpson. The Bill was introduced on June 11 and assigned to the House Judiciary Committee. On June 17th, it was reported out of committee with 7 "On it's Merits". On June 25th it passed the House of Representatives 36-0. On June 26 it was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it is as of this date awaiting action. TO ALL OF THE ABOVE I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND OUR SINCERE THANKS!
AN UPDATE!!!! I just returned from Legislative Hall where the 142 General Assembly has come to a close. One of the last Bills to come to the floor in the Senate was HB233. When the Bill went to the Senate, it was assigned to Senator Vaughn's Judiciary Committee by the Senate President Pro Tempore, Senator Thurman Adams. Speaker Spence had included it on his "must-have" list when it went over from the House, which means it was a high-priority item. Due to the lateness of it's arrival in the Senate, I was unsure if it would come to the floor. When it did come to the floor, a minor technical error was discovered which needed to be corrected so that when the Bill becomes effective it will modify the correct section of Title 11, Section 612. Senator Vaughn proposed an ammendment which will correct this error. The Bill was then voted on. It passed the Senate 20-0 with 1 absent. It now needs to have it's ammendment ratified in the House in order to go to the Governor for signing. This may occur as early as this fall, if they come back for a fall session. If not, it will be one of the early matters taken up in January when the Legislature meets just before the JFC Meetings. The ratification should be a formality since it passed both the House and the Senate with unanimous votes. Please join me in thanking the Representatives and Senators, many of whom went out of their way to support this Legislation. I would also like to thank Bob Jamison, President of the State FOP Lodge; Vince Fiscella, Jr., President of the Delaware State Troopers Association; Marge Ellwein, President of FOP Lodge #5 (NCCPD); and Attorney General Jane Brady for supporting this Bill. I look forward to working with them all in the 143rd General Assembly next year.