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SC Soccer Referee Association |
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To: All USSF Referees, Assignors, Instructors, and Assessors in South Carolina
From: Fred Bieber, State Referee Administrator - South Carolina
The South Carolina General Assembly has enacted new legislation which became law on June 25, 2008. This new legislation should help to reduce the number of violent confrontations that occur after games where sports officials are attacked , verbally and physically, by players, fans, spectators, and other individuals.
The text of the new law is shown below and can be
viewed at the following SC Government website:
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess117_2007-2008/bills/577.htm
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:
Magistrates courts' jurisdiction, assault and battery offenses of sports officials
SECTION 1. Section 22-3-560 of the 1976 Code is amended to read:
"Section 22-3-560. (A) Magistrates may punish by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both, all assaults and batteries and other breaches of the peace when the offense is neither an assault and battery against school personnel pursuant to Section 16-3-612 nor an assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature requiring, in their judgment or by law, greater punishment.
(B) Magistrates may punish by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding sixty days, or both, all assaults and batteries against sports officials and coaches when, in committing an assault and battery, the offender knows the individual assaulted to be a sports official or coach at any level of competition and the act causing the assault and battery to the sports official or coach occurred within an athletic facility or an indoor or outdoor playing field or within the immediate vicinity of the athletic facility or an indoor or outdoor playing field at which the sports official or coach was an active participant in the athletic contests held at the athletic facility. For the purposes of this subsection, 'sports official' means a person at an athletic contest who enforces the rules of the contest, such as an umpire, referee, scorekeeper, and 'coach' means a person recognized as a coach by the sanctioning authority that conducted the athletic contest."
The new law allows Magistrate's Courts to double the normal punishments for assault and battery offenses when perpetrated upon a sports official. I hope this strengthened law will be a deterrent to those who would try to confront officials after games.
Remember, if you are confronted with assault and battery before, during, or after a game, call the police and press charges.
Fred Bieber, State Referee Administrator for SC
3011 Knightbridge Road
Columbia, SC 29223-2130
803.730.3733
fbieber@usit.net
8/5/2008