§34.5.  Battery of a correctional facility employee

A.(1)  Battery of a correctional facility employee is a battery committed without the consent of the victim when the offender has reasonable grounds to believe the victim is a correctional facility employee acting in the performance of his duty.

(2)  For purposes of this Section, "correctional facility employee" means any employee of any jail, prison, correctional facility, juvenile institution, temporary holding center, halfway house, or detention facility.

(3)  For purposes of this Section, "battery of a correctional facility employee" includes the use of force or violence upon the person of the employee by throwing water or any other liquid, feces, urine, blood, saliva, or any form of human waste by an offender while the offender is incarcerated and is being detained in any jail, prison, correctional facility, juvenile institution, temporary holding center, halfway house, or detention facility.

B.(1)  Whoever commits the crime of battery of a correctional facility employee shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars and imprisoned not less than fifteen days nor more than six months without benefit of suspension of sentence.

(2)  If at the time of the commission of the offense the offender is under the jurisdiction and legal custody of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, or is being detained in any jail, prison, correctional facility, juvenile institution, temporary holding center, halfway house, or detention facility, the offender shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars and imprisoned with or without hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence for not less than one year nor more than five years.  Such sentence shall be consecutive to any other sentence imposed for violation of the provisions of any state criminal law.

Acts 1997, No. 486, §1; Acts 1999, No. 86, §1; Acts 2013, No. 290, §1, eff. June 14, 2013.