Several years ago, the Sixth Circuit noted the “timeless question whether “spitting a ‘lugie’ towards someone, by itself, constitutes an ‘assault.’” United States v. Gagnon, 553 F.3d 1021 (6th Cir. 2009). I’ve been asked this question several times, and in today’s post, I set out to answer it. Preliminary matters. First, I think the accepted spelling is loogie, not lugie, as noted in this blog post. Second, some readers may be interested in the etymology of the term. According to the Urban Dictionary, “loogie” is “a portmanteau word, or alteration and combination, of ‘lung cookie.’” I am a little skeptical, because that explanation would seem to result in “lookie,” not “loogie,” and because of early uses of the precursor term “louie,” which sounds nothing like “lung cookie.” Third, although the Sixth Circuit referred to loogies, which by common understanding involve a combination of spit and mucus, this post considers spitting more broadly. I don’t think anything important turns on the presence or absence of mucus. Assaults generally. North Carolina doesn’t define assault by statute. Rather, it relies on the common law understanding of assault as an attempt to injure another that puts the victim in fear of harm. See, e.g., State v. Mitchell, 358 N.C. 63 (2004) (defining an assault as “an overt act or an attempt, or the unequivocal appearance of an attempt, with force and violence, to do some immediate physical injury to the person of another, which show of force or menace of violence must be sufficient to [...]
Faculty Coordinators
