Associated Press
Dallas Morning News
A gay-rights group is protesting a 35-year prison sentence given to an HIV-positive man who was convicted of spitting on a police officer, and public health officials say the risk of contracting the AIDS virus from saliva is extremely low.
Prosecutors convinced a jury this week that the man's spit constituted a deadly weapon, making the long prison term appropriate.
Willie Campbell spit into the eye and open mouth of a Dallas police officer while he was being arrested for public intoxication in 2006, the officer testified.
Campbell, 42, had been in prison twice before, making him a habitual offender subject to a sentence of at least 25 years.
Bebe Anderson, the HIV projects director at Lambda Legal, a gay-rights group, said the verdict could create wrong impressions about how HIV is transmitted.
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