PEOPLE v. HAYES
Evidence that probationer, in seeking to avoid arrest, kicked a concrete ashtray that was next to an officer seeking to arrest him. Kicking as "hard as he could" and "with great force" and causing ashtray, which was approximately three feet high and weighed about 50 pounds, to topple over and strike the officer in shin, ripping his pants and inflicting a laceration, satisfied mental element of crime of battery. Since reasonable trier of fact could infer that defendant intended for ashtray to fall and cause injury. In prosecution for felony offense of battery on a deputy probation officer with injury, failure to instruct sua sponte on lesser included offense of battery on a deputy probation officer without injury was error where officer sustained only slight laceration with slight bleeding and did not seek professional care or find it necessary to use pain medication; defendant in such case is entitled to either a retrial or a reduction of conviction to one of lesser offense, at prosecutor's election.
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