A San Diego man has pleaded no contest to secretly exposing his boyfriend to HIV between 2012 and 2013.
According to court documents, 30-year-old Thomas Miguel Guerra lied to his boyfriend about his HIV status when they first met in 2012. The two men dated for about a year and had unprotected sex “at Guerra’s urging,” the lawsuit claims.
The victim learned he had been exposed to the virus through a Facebook message from one of Guerra’s ex-boyfriends, who warned him that Guerra had a history of lying to people about his HIV status. The victim then went onto Guerra’s phone and found several text messages bragging to friends about infecting multiple people with his “positive load.”
The victim tested positive for HIV in May 2013. He filed a complaint against Guerra three months later.
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City attorney Jan Goldsmith said this is the first prosecution of intentional HIV exposure in San Diego county since the statute was first adopted 20 years ago.
“I hope this case helps to educate people that it is a crime to willfully expose someone to an infectious disease,” he told KFMB TV station. “The law is designed to protect the public and, in this case, the right of one’s partner to know the truth.”
Guerra is scheduled to be sentenced next month. He faces up to six months behind bars a $1,000 fine.
Related stories:
Man Learns He Was Intentionally Infected With HIV Via Facebook Message
HIV Positive Guys: Meet The New Criminal Class
Get Ready For Ten Things HIV Negative Guys Really Need Positive Guys To Hear
oilburner
Here’s an idea. Practice safe sex.
jason smeds
It is ridiculous to call sex “dangerous”. Promiscuous behavior is dangerous, not sex.
edwardnvirginia
Sex is the designation we give to the biological phenomena of male and female organisms or other, unusual variations of these phenomena. Many organisms are sexual in this way. It is not apparently dangerous.
Sexual reproduction could be dangerous (e.g. when too many human reproduce and destroy habitat of other creature threatening their extinction)
Sexual behavior can in many cases be dangerous, including as in this story.
Scribe38
What an assh*le! I don’t understand people who bug chase or stealth. How do you date a person a whole year and lie and brag about making someone positive? Dude is lucky he’s still alive. This is why I don’t trust anyone, because you never known when someone has a f*cked up agenda.
Cam
@oilburner:
@jason smeds:
Yes by all means, let’s always blame the victim guys.
As for that “fine”, the ex needs to file a civil suit for the cost of treatment for the next 50 years, and go after the friends that knew about his behavior as accessories.
Ummmm Yeah
@Scribe38: Just look at the ones on here blaming the victim to see how common this is. You know they’ve done the same thing or they wouldn’t be defending a murderer.
curan
Six months is not enough. I live in a border community with seven or twenty-five year maximum sentences, and there have been multiple prosecutions in our region, some drawing national attention.
There is a great outcry to do away with these crimes, but some people are monsters.
dtpm
I love all the finger pointing… these are adults, BOTH made choices. I am not saying that was was done is in any way admissible, but I’m astounded at the stigma HIV has in a first world country with all the information available. Many worse things are done that seem less abhorrent as long as it’s not sex related. A society of promiscuous puritans will never be at ease with itself.
SportGuy
Feel horrible for the partner, but this is the exact reason to always use condoms while dating and when in relationship. I will never not use condoms!
Large Marge
@Cam:
The friends are not accessories in any stretch of the imagination. They did not participate nor helped ‘plan’ the ‘crime’, nor did they facilitate it.
They were simply told about it after the fact and are/were under no legal obligation to disclose any information they were provided much like a psychiatrist is not obligated to tell authorities their patient killed someone, unless they are an imminent threat to others.
@ummmm Yeah, the ‘victim’ is equally to blame. It takes two to tango. The only person responsible for your infection is yourself. It’s not like the guy stuck a stranger with a tainted needle.
These laws are used to maliciously prosecute many people, they don’t do any good and should be abolished. It’s like making it a crime to transmit herpes or any other std.. all of which are likely lethal without meds. It’s stupid.
Cam
@dtpm:
Oh give it a rest, If somebody injures somebody purposely and that person’s life is impacted, say they now have a limp or loss of hearing, they are sent to jail. This is no different, he purposely infected his partner with something that is going to cost a lot of money over the course of his life.
xzall
I’m somewhat conflicted on this as the law doesn’t seem to apply to any other disease except HIV.
That’s the only disease I’ve heard where someone is jailed.
Give your partner syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea and at most you probably can sue them civilly. Give your partner HIV/AIDS and it’s jail for 25 years in some states.
Kieran
“He faces up to six months behind bars a $1,000 fine.”
Well that ought to scare the hell out of other scumbags who might want to infect others with a life threatening disease. I hope they throw the book at him and make him serve the full six months availing himself of the prison gym facilities.
Giancarlo85
Six months is a light sentence.
And it doesn’t surprise me Jason smeds is on her blaming the victim. This is something he always does.
Bauhaus
@Cam:
“he purposely infected his partner with something that is going to cost a lot of money over the course of his life.”
You cut to the chase. You cut to the quick. Delicious.
Paco
@xzall: @xzall: I’m conflicted too. But, HIV is still a public health threat and without the expensive, lifelong use of medication, is still deadly. I think these laws are meant to be a deterrent for the real monsters like the man in the article, that have a sociopathic need to spread it around and should be removed from society.
There is also the problem of people still refusing to do what is necessary to protect themselves from infection. If a guy insists on unprotected sex and offers no proof of his clean bill of health, that should be a huge red flag. But that is probably victim blaming I suppose.
Bob LaBlah
@Giancarlo85: Left in the parking lot again, huh?
TomMc
@Large Marge: “It’s like making it a crime to transmit herpes or any other std.. all of which are likely lethal without meds.”
Might you elaborate on how one can die from any other sexually transmitted infection please? I looked up herpes, and it seems that only 96 cases per year are fatal, and of those, the people most at risk of dying from that one type of herpes are those with compromised immune systems (e.g. individuals infected with HIV).
lykeitiz
@dtpm: Seriously? Newsflash: People still die from this. Not to mention the lifelong cost. So yeah, there’s a stigma. And speaking of the cost, who will pay? The victim’s employer’s health plan, or us (the state or federal)? Or has this sociopathic a-hole depleted a charitable organization’s limited resources? Puritanism has nothing to do with it.
And @xzall: although herpes is forever, the cost of treatment is nowhere near HIV, and none of the rest you mentioned come close.
Bauhaus
@Bob LaBlah:
Blah, really. Get out of whatever steam room you are writing from. Come out for air. Breath.
Geez, your brain is waterlogged from all of that steam.
Hmm, both an online and a locker room troll? Not surprised.
Stache99
@TomMc: I think a better example would be Hepatitis or HPV which are also sexually transmitted and can be just as deadly. Liver failure and cancer.
DistingueTraces
An abusive predator of this kind who obviously should be in jail unfortunately creates a skewed perspective on the law under which he’s been prosecuted.
He could be charged with a much more serious crime — assault causing grievous bodily harm.
But disclosure laws are bad public health. They create a perverse incentive for people already behaving self-destructively to NOT get tested, NOT get treated, and hence remain far more dangerous to others and costly to the health care system.
Smart public health policy incentivizes getting tested and treated — the opposite of what this law does.
DarkZephyr
I had a sex partner willfully lie to me about his HIV status once (he was the top in this case). Thank goodness I insisted on condoms, as 2 years later I remain HIV negative. I will never cave in and bare back as a top OR a bottom even though I have been pressured plenty of times in the past.
DistingueTraces
Yep. Guys will smile, look you in the face, and lie — simply because they want it to feel just a little bit better.
And even with the best intentions in the world, the recently-infected may not know they are positive — and the recently-infected have elevated levels of the virus and are especially likely to infect others.
Do not trust a hookup, and get tested together before you trust a partner.
Giancarlo85
@Bob LaBlah: Go get a job and stop living off social security checks.
joey
@Stache99: right you are stache as you know i’ve talked about this before . hepatitis is 100 times easier to get than hiv i didnt know that until i became exposed. all i can say here is that guy would be very very very sorry if he did that to me….very sorry ;-0) over 2 yrs later and i still am too paranoid for sex
AlliterationAddict
@Cam: Yeah. If you intentionally infect someone with a potentially lethal pathogen in a way that isn’t sex-related, then it’s considered bioterrorism and carries much more significant charges!
DistingueTraces
@AlliterationAddict: Right. So why is there a lesser charge because of the sexual context?
The law he was charged under has one of two effects: it either counter-productively criminalizes the negligent, cowardly, and stoned-to-the-gills, or else it lets a real predator like this one off with a slap on the wrist.
Cam
@Large Marge: said…”The friends are not accessories in any stretch of the imagination. They did not participate nor helped ‘plan’ the ‘crime’, nor did they facilitate it.”
________________________________________
If a friend tells you that he is going to go out and commit a rape, and you don’t tell anybody, and don’t report, you can be charged.
If a friend tells you they are going to burn down somebody’s house and you do’t tell anybody, you can be charged.
Maybe you might not do time, or the charge will be dismissed, but you absolutely can be..
da90027
This is why you both go down together and get tested and ask to see results….if the guy was on meds and undetectable studies have shown you cant pass it i think what is so disgusting here is the fact this guy bragged about intentionally infecting someone. He is obviously a sociopath.
Blackceo
See….I would’ve been in the courtroom instead of this guy because I would be on trial for 1st degree murder. I think it is so disgusting what this guy did and to then brag about it????!!! He’s lucky to be alive because I wouldn’t have blamed the guy he purposely infected if he did snap. Wrap it up….always. He’s not the only guy out there lying about his status and I’ll be damned if I put my health at risk because someone is whispering sweet nothings. It took me a long time to have unprotected sex with my fiancé and we been together for years now. People need to not feel pressured and feel guilty if some other guy is upset that you won’t have unprotected sex with them. People need to make themselves a priority and be safe, especially if you haven’t seen the receipts that the guy you are with is negative. Or, even if he is positive to see the receipts that he may be undetectable or wherever his viral load lies so that together you can make the best sexual practice decisions.
TomMc
@Stache99: Actually those are *much* better examples. Thanks Stache99.
dtpm
People feel sorry for this guy but the MAIN concern is who is going to pay for all these meds??? I repeat what this guy did is wrong yet the victim also made a choice and it sounds like an uninformed one. I’ve had friends that were in long term relationships with the negative test and all.. and WHAM suddenly there is hiv. Then ‘but who knew he was being unfaithful???’, the list goes on and on…about similar situations. There is also the reality of what people say and what they do. MANY people out there are having unprotected sex, MANY.
Fvk847
6 months and $1000 fine? I’m sorry but thats not a harsh sentence but a slap on the wrist. 2 years would be more like it if I ran the judicial system.
money718
Wow. Was the dude even on meds?
da90027
Money718 i doubt it…if undetectable tranmission is unlikely…there are a lot of crazy people out there…there is a creep on adam4adam withe username pozload4neghole or something to that effect. Choose your partners carefully people look for red flags and dont be desperate for a bf
Saint Law
@jason smeds: It’s true you can’t contract HIV from sitting at home alone watching porn and wanking.
The rest of us like to have sex with actual partners tho.
joey
@Saint Law: ha sounds like me stay at home and just watch porn anymore…at least i dont have to get tested or put up with liars
Saint Law
@Large Marge: “Yeah the ‘victim’ is also to blame.”
There are lots of fags who think like this. They posit an equivalence between the trust someone might feel for a person they love, and the duplicity with which that person returns that trust and that love.
Because, of course, none of us owe any duty of care to the man we might be in a relationship with – let alone the strangers with whom we have casual sex.
I’ll bet your life is a cold Hell. It’s no less than you deserve.
orrine
@jason smeds: Newsflash: sex is dangereous. Many people get HIV from their partner in cases like that or when their boyfriends cheat
CCTR
@joey: The good thing is that the majority of society is not out to victimize, terrorize, and intentionally harm other people.
If some of these ill people are out to victimize, there is often little one can do to protect themselves. A condom may have prevented the outcome in this case but even if the victim in this case insisted on a condom, who’s to say the perpetrator wouldn’t alter it to the point of it being ineffective if his TRUE INTENT was to infect others with HIV.
I’m not judging you but don’t be too afraid of companionship, romance, and mutual love and trust. Sometimes carefully and attentively dealing with a variety of people and situations helps give you the experience and the knowledge to discern nuttiness and BS.
Jacob23
6 months is insane. This was an intentional act. He didn’t just fail to disclose, which would be horrendous enough; he actively lied for the purpose of causing infection. And then he boasted about it. He’s a psychopath. But with this sentence he could jailed today and out by September. Actually, with California’s early release options, he could be out by July, free to do the same thing to new victims. He should be in for 20 years.
Jacob23
@dtpm: Sure the victim made choices. People also chose to invest with Bernie Madoff. People sometimes choose to count their money when walking down dark alleyways. Sometimes people go to parties or social events and accept food and drink from people they don’t know. You might question the intelligence of these victims or you might not. None of this has the slightest thing to do with the culpability of perpetrators. Madoff can’t say, “I committed no crime because my victims were gullible.” A mugger can’t escape prison by claiming that his victim shouldn’t have been counting his money in the alley. And if the host at a party puts arsenic in the drinks, he can’t exculpate himself by arguing that the guests were all adults and made the choice to drink. There’s something not quite right with you, sir.
CCTR
@Jacob23: I’m just guessing, but the sentence probably reflects the consensual nature of their sexual relationship, and the reasonable expectation that the victim was aware of how HIV is transmitted and safer sex practices.
xzall
This isn’t as cut and dried as people are making it out to be. The reason why HIV and only HIV is criminalized like this is because of irrational fear and anti gay attitudes. Most HIV and AIDS org are against criminalizing this disease. It makes people less likely to get tested promoting the spread of the disease.
And maybe in this case it’s clear who’s the villain and who’s the victim, these laws have been used to incarcerate gay men for extended periods of times for relatively minor offenses.
For instance on the HIV website they have listed some cases
A man with HIV in Texas is serving thirty-five years for spitting at a police officer
A man with HIV in Iowa, who had an undetectable viral load, received a twenty-five year sentence after a one-time sexual encounter during which he used a condom; his sentence was suspended, but he had to register as a sex-offender and is not allowed unsupervised contact with his nieces, nephews and other young children
A woman with HIV in Georgia received an eight-year sentence for failing to disclose her HIV status, despite the trial testimony of two witnesses that her sexual partner was aware of her HIV positive status
A man with HIV in Michigan was charged under the state’s anti-terrorism statute with possession of a “biological weapon” after he allegedly bit his neighbor.
Realityis
This is exactly how I was infected in 91. I was with him for 5 years and only found out when he became sick and died. The anger I have towards him is still in me because HIV ruined my social and professional life because of the meds causing lipodystrophy.
This guy is a f’ing POS and if he knowing lied to his partner then he deserves time in prison.
DarkZephyr
@xzall: “The reason why HIV and only HIV is criminalized like this is because of irrational fear and anti gay attitudes.”
No. Its because HIV out of all STDs was the cause of a monstrous epidemic that had a seriously massive cost in human lives. Maybe you didn’t know that?
Mike G
@jason smeds: What’s “promiscuous” about having a boyfriend? There’s nothing in the story to suggest they were even non-monogamous. So reckless, yes, promiscuous, no. And in any event, I’ve known a number of extremely promiscuous people of both sexes and various orientations, who’ve managed to avoid HIV and Hep C infection for decades. Not my cup of tea, but it can be done.
@SportGuy: Yep. Certainly not with someone new, absolutely not with someone new who’s “urging” me to not to do so, without at the very least also “urging” that we get tested together for HIV and Hep C, repeatedly, over an appropriate period of time. Big red flags flapping wildly in a gale-force breeze, anyone? Seems pretty obvious to me, but then, the news is all too full of the apparent fact that a lot of younger guys/people don’t feel that way. Not directly germane to the case in question, but clearly something that needs to be addressed as a matter of public policy.
@da90027: The victim isn’t dead. No body, no homicide. I don’t see how you could even get an indictment for attempted murder. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon would be a long stretch, but I think about as far as you could go along those lines. (I suspect in fact that it’s been tried, but I don’t know of any such case, or the outcome, personally.)
As for the subject in general, this case is a great illustration of the the maxim well-known in legal circles: “Hard cases make bad law.”
Someone like this clearly, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of a hypothetical “person on the street”, deserves to go to jail, and for a much longer than 6 months. Possibly even for life, as a matter of public safety rather than simple punishment. I’m not at all sure it’s safe to let him out on the streets again. (Unless of course we’re willing to start tattooing convicts like him on the forehead. And talk about making bad law.)
On the other hand, the subject involves multi-sided social policy issues and is fraught with emotion, making it ripe for overbroad and poorly-reasoned legislation. The latter needs to be addressed, but victims like this one shouldn’t be as readily blamed as they often are, and defendants like this certainly shouldn’t be let off the hook. Not only did he do what he did “knowingly,” there was clear evidence that he did it fully intentionally. People like him are, at worst, simply evil, and at best, dangerous sociopaths.
jason smeds
AIDS was worse in the gay scene than the straight scene because the gay scene is far more concentrated. Remember the golden rule regarding the spread of illness-causing viruses and bacteria: concentration causes amplification.
In other words, if you put ten bacteria in a bowl, they will grow and multiply far faster than if you put ten bacteria in a bowl that is a hundred times bigger.
This is why I think we should pull the rug from under the gay scene and expose it for what is is – ie a concentrating mechanism which has helped spread illness.
Billy Budd
the victim is not to blame because:
1) He asked about the guys HIV status and the guy LIED.
2) He was ASKED to perform unoprotected sex. He did not take the initiative.
Of course, he could have stood his ground and demanded a condom. But that is another story,
Blackceo
@Realityis:
See….and Im still apprehensive about having unprotected sex with my fiancé. People are all “aww but you are basically saying you don’t trust him if you still want to use condoms and that must hurt his feelings” Sorry but at the end of the day…fuck your feelings. I have heard one too many stories just like this. Been in a relationship for years, thought it was monogamous, and bam. No…if I can’t watch you 24/7 I don’t know what the hell you could be doing. Now I think my fiancé is too scared at this point to do anything because I think he knows Im not playing when I say I will kill his ass and get rid of his body B613 style. It would be the end of his life.
xzall
@DarkZephyr: This was the disease that was pretty much ignored by the President of the United States Ronald Reagan because the thousands of people who were dying were mostly gay men. Did you know that? As someone who had relatives in the health profession at the time the disease was rampant, I also remember the extreme fears of people who should have known better. There were people who refused to touch or treat anyone who they thought had AIDS. Ambulance drivers wouldn’t pick them out. Bodies were placed in plastic bags. Do you remember that?
Because a lot of the fear of AIDS and HIV was irrational with people assuming you could get it by just touching and because the disease mainly affected the other, gay people, is the reason why this disease, unlike any other disease, is criminalized. You really, really imagine that this comes from a rational place? Just look at how the public reacted to that other disease that affected another other group, Africans called Ebola, and you’ll see how irrational fears can drive policy.
Giancarlo85
@jason smeds: Got anything more homophobic to say? You sound like a typical right wing politician.
Mike G
@jason smeds: I’m not in a position to dispute your assertion, but is that really true? Can you post the name of website, if not an actual URL or link, that explains the concept? Assuming other conditions in both bowls are equal, that doesn’t make intuitive sense to me. I understand that many things don’t make sense intuitively, hence the request for further explanation.
I basically agree with you about the extraordinary promiscuity of the 1970s – and not just, though perhaps especially among gay/bi men. On the other hand, I’m not sure you mean by “exposing the scene for what it is”, or why that would be helpful. For one thing, today’s scene is absolutely nothing like it was back then. Trust me, while I was, thankfully in retrospect, too young to be taking part in it back then (or I’d probably be long dead by now), given my somewhat unusual background/upbringing, I was quite well aware of it from a distance. Nothing like that goes on on a scale remotely like that anymore. For another, I don’t think one can “blame,” in the sense of moral condemnation, the AIDS crisis on the scene, anymore than you can “blame” medieval living conditions for the black plague, or WWI wartime press restrictions for the 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic. You can “blame” behaviors and policies after a threat becomes known, but not imo, before.
Chris
@Saint Law: Perfect response.
I am constantly amazed and saddened by how many commentators in these kinds of posts dis the victim for trusting his partner. Trust in others, especially those who we love, is a very fragile commodity; and once we break it, it is almost impossible to ever recreate. There has to be someplace between naively trusting everyone and cynically trusting no one.
Merv
@xzall: “Most HIV and AIDS org are against criminalizing this disease.”
Thank you for the reminder. Groups like Lambda Legal are actively working to legalize and legitimize deliberately infecting people without their knowledge or consent. Do not donate ONE CENT to Lambda Legal, and be sure to spread the word.
Mike G
@Merv:I happen to agree with you regarding Lambda’s position of urging the complete repeal of all laws criminalizing the transmission of HIV under all circumstances. Without outlining my entire views on the subject, I do however agree with Lambda’s position that current laws need to be radically rewritten. Currently, they’re pretty much all outrageously overbroad and draconian.
It should be noted that you grossly mischaracterize their actual position, which is that existing criminal laws are sufficient to prosecute the intentional transmission of the disease (the only behavior they believe should be considered criminal.) They do not in any way promote the “legitimization of deliberately infecting people without their knowledge or consent” under any circumstances. Indeed, while they would apparently prefer the complete repeal of all criminal HIV-specific laws concern transmission of the infection, they don’t actually oppose, as a minimum, the rewriting and restructuring of those laws to make them more rational and just.
Given all that, I think your blanket call for a boycott on donations to the organization is unwarranted and extreme. Simply stated, no other national LGBTetc rights group has done as much good for as many people for as long a period of time as Lambda. Even if you disagree with it, the call for blanket decriminalization of HIV transmission is only one among dozens of important, worthy goals they fight for.
DarkZephyr
@xzall: If the guy who lied to me about his status had passed his HIV onto me you can bet your bottom dollar I would have pressed charges. We used a condom, but they are NOT fool proof. And this is someone I had known for *years* and trusted. Yes I would have pressed charges. I am glad its illegal.
DarkZephyr
I didn’t know that Lambda Legal supported those who lie about their status. Now that I know, I will not support them.
jason smeds
Mike G,
Yes, it’s true that if you put 10 bacteria into a small bowl, each will replicate at a faster rate than if you put the same 10 bacteria into a bowl that is 100 times bigger. It’s a common observation of cell culture experiments where a higher initial plating density increases the rate of growth of each cell.
Giancarlo85
@DarkZephyr: I too did not know that.
And I would also ask Mike… How is the current law draconian? The guy in this case got six months in jail. People get more time for shop lifting. Lambda legal has done a lot of good, but they could ruin all of that with this idiotic stance. They are basically promoting reckless behavior.
Jason, stop trying to make scientific remarks when you know nothing about science.
Giancarlo85
@jason smeds: By the way, you were asked for links and support for your argument, and as expected you don’t have any. Take your pseudo-intellectual remarks to Fox news.
Mike G
@jason smeds: “It’s a common observation of cell culture experiments where a higher initial plating density increases the rate of growth of each cell.”
Oh, that’s what you were referring to. Honestly, I don’t see how that could possibly relate to any known epidemiological phenomenon.
Mike G
@DarkZephyr: You should look at Lambda’s policy statement for yourself, Merv grossly exaggerates their position. Their basic plicy seems to be that HIV-specific laws — those that target only people infected with HIV — should be abolished. They don’t necessarily oppose prosecutions under existing laws, which have been more widely used to successfully prosecute these cases than I’d realized. (Including some cases which I think were unjust.)
Mike G
@Giancarlo85: I didn’t mean to apply that every HIV-specific law in every state was draconian. But they vary wildly, and prosecutorial policy varies wildly. People have been sentenced to decades in prison for not disclosing their status even when they used a condom and there was, in fact, no transmission of the virus. (One recent case like that was overturned on appeal. I don’t know how many other similar cases there have been, or what their ultimate outcome was after all appeals were exhausted.)
Another issue is that many of these laws, passed early on, still criminalize behavior such as spitting and biting (without intent to transmit), with very heavy sentences, despite greater scientific understanding which has long since made it clear it’s virtually impossible to transmit in that manner.
I’m not sure whether linking to specific sites is allowed in these comments, so I’ll just suggest that you Google: “HIV transmission criminalization” (without the quotes). In addition to a lot of general policy arguments (not all of which I agree with), there are a number of links in the first couple of pages or results with specific information about the existing state of the law, as well as calls for reform from any number of organizations with detailed critiques of the status quo, including from the US Department of Justice.
Mike G
@DarkZephyr: One often-criticized aspect of many current laws is that the guy you refer to could in fact have been prosecuted, and given a heavy sentence, even though the virus was in fact not transmitted. (And strictly speaking, victims don’t get to choose who gets prosecuted, the state does, though obviously prosecutors wouldn’t be aware of a potential crime if no complaint were publicly made at all.)
Giancarlo85
@Mike G: The law should be somewhat draconian for those who infect others willingly and without telling the other. I am not in favor of someone getting sentenced if they use a condom, but hiding ones status and not telling another about it is still putting that person at risk. Condoms are not 100%. In fact, I am still in favor of some light prosecution (1-5 years).
Lambda legal is wrong in their view on this matter.
I’m sorry Mike, but when people don’t tell others their status and they have sex with them they are still putting the person in danger. Period. I am still in favor of prosecution.
Mike G
@Giancarlo85:This isn’t really the place for a full-blown discussion of all the relevant issues, and in any event, I’m not out to get everyone to agree with me. I just want people (in general, not necessarily you or any other specific commenter to this article) to get past their knee-jerk emotional reactions and to think rationally about the actual facts, and about the potential ramifications of this sort of legislation. (Ramifications not only to infected individuals, but to social and healthcarae policies for preventing the spread of the disease.) Much of the current legislation was passed in the early days of the pandemic when sheer panic was rampant and the virus/disease was poorly understood. It needs to be revisited and in many, if not most cases, revised.
One thing I think is important to to point out is the arguably discriminatory specificity of (most, if not all of) the current laws, which is an issue central to Lambda’s and others’ opposition to the status quo. For the most part, the laws don’t refer to transmissible incurable deadly/debilitating diseases in general, they single out HIV/AIDS.
What about Hepatitis C? It’s less immediately deadly, and tt’s harder to transmit. But it is still transmissible through unprotected sexual contact and there is no vaccine. There are treatments, but rhe cure rate even the latest, (and extremely expensive) drug is high, but even that’s not 100%. The cure rate for more affordable treatments is fairly good, but still uncomfortably low.
Or gonorrhea. It’s still currently treatable at comparatively low cost, but there are already numerous drug-resistant strains, and the widespread consensus is that it will evolve totally antibiotic-resistant strains in the near future. (And little research is being done to develop new treatments, with nothing currently on the horizon.)
Further afield, but not entirely irrelevant to the broader discussion are also, for example, extensively drug-resistant and totally drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis. TB is s quite infectious and doesn’t even require physical contact – just close physical proximity – for transmission. (Meaning among other things that one person can potentially infect many others at the same time.) Even only moderately resistant strains can require years of treatment. TB may not be nearly as widespread a problem in the US as HIV/AIDS, but that wouldn’t be terribly comforting to someone who did become infected, particularly with one of the more resistant strains.
Giancarlo85
You are completely missing the point. My advocacy for prosecution is sound and reasonable. And my reasoning has to do with intent. If one is intentionally infecting others they should be prosecuted. This is where your argument falls flat. My argument has to do with intent and malicious behavior. And this goes towards any incurable deadly disease.
Merv
Some people seem to be concerned that people will refrain from getting tested to avoid having to disclose if a positive status is discovered. There’s an obvious solution to that problem: require truthful disclosure, even if it is disclosure that you haven’t been tested recently (or ever). This should also be accompanied by a public education campaign:
1. Always use protection, regardless of perceived status.
2. Remember there are alternatives to anal sex.
3. Be specific in questions. Not “Are you clean?”, but “When were you last tested for HIV? What were the results? Have you engaged in unprotected sex within the last X months? etc.”
4. Be truthful with your answers, or face criminal prosecution and possible jail time.
Mike G
@Giancarlo85: In that case, Lambda has no problem with you, and you have no problem with Lambda. Contrary to Merv’s assertion, they do not, and as far as I know, no organization, calls for an end to prosecutions for intentional and malicious transmission of HIV. They simply believe, and in light of actual practice across the country I must agree, that existing laws are sufficient without additional ones specifically singling out those with HIV.
@Merv: I can’t cite specific chapters and sections, certainly not for all 50 states, but seriously speaking, I think existing criminal law pretty much covers all that. What it doesn’t necessarily cover is a requirement that one volunteer that information, whether asked for or not, or whether mitigating circumstances exist or not (like “undetectable viral loads” and the use of barrier protection.) Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn’t, but that should be a subject of far more public discussion and debate than it got in ill-informed, panic-stricken 1990s. And law involving spitting and biting certainly need to be revisited and revised, if not repealed altogether.
The other thing existing (non-HIV-specific) laws don’t do is call for grossly disproportionate sentences. Should simple non-disclosure draw sentences longer than many forms of actual homicide, aggravated physical assault, assault with deadly weapons, violent rape, child abuse, etc? That doesn’t seem right to me, but that is, in many places, the current state of HIV-specific criminal legislation.
Paco
@Merv: “There’s an obvious solution to that problem: require truthful disclosure, even if it is disclosure that you haven’t been tested recently (or ever).
I have to agree with this. Willful ignorance about your HIV status should be treated the same as not telling sexual partners about infection. People that engage in high risk sex have an obligation to others to be tested frequently, because if they are infected and don’t know it, they are more infectious than the poz person on treatment.
xzall
For those asking for specific instances of draconian practices and prosecutions I listed some examples.
The first one I listed : A man with HIV in Texas is serving thirty-five years for spitting at a police officer
The current laws criminalizes anyone who has HIV because it’s not based on reality of transmission. If you have HIV and you spit on someone, you can be arrested and accused of manslaughter. In the majority of cases there is no transmission of the disease, just the fear of getting it that’s enough to get you arrested and charged. They can arrest someone for a misdemeanor solicitation and then up the charges to a felony non disclosure when they find out the person has HIV.
Also in the cases involving relationships it’s difficult to prove you did disclose. People can lie about you and since they actually don’t have to have the disease or they could have gotten it from someone else.
xzall
correction: People can lie about you since they actually don’t have to have the disease for you to be arrested. The point is disclosure is hard to prove.
Cam
Notice how the people who keep trying to blame the victim sound a lot like the same type of people who don’t want Banking executives held responsible for crashing the economy?
Well heck, those people took out mortgages, so it’s their fault.
Or like people defending rape?
Well what was she doing out there at that time of night?
Bauhaus
@Cam:
Yeah, good girls don’t wear skirts that short. They must have been asking for it, or maybe they deserved it.
Clark35
This happens all the time either from a person knowing they are poz, or from the person not knowing; but it happens from unprotected sex.
It’s far easier to just use condoms and practice safer sex.
Most HIV+ gay men I know got it from consensual unprotected sex with a partner.
Sebizzar
This is why so many of us have trust issues. It’s hard enough trying to find the right guy, how frustrating that we also have to worry about sickos like him.