The Register's Editorial: Lawmakers need to revisit HIV criminal law

9-20-2013 Iowa:

It's unfair to punish man when no one is harmed

Iowa lawmakers are eager to pass laws criminalizing just about any activity. Yet they refuse to acknowledge when one of those laws turns out to be a mistake.

Therefore, it would have done them good to have attended a hearing in the Iowa Court of Appeals last week. They could have seen how a bad law they passed in 1998 has wasted the time of public officials, embarrassed the state of Iowa and ruined the lives of innocent people. It might prompt them to repeal a law criminalizing HIV-positive Iowans who have done nothing wrong.

Nick Rhoades is one of those Iowans. He is challenging the application of Iowa’s law that makes it a felony to expose someone to HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.

Rhoades was diagnosed with HIV in 1998. Ten years later, he was on medication to combat the virus and was told by his doctor that he had a better chance of winning Powerball than being able to spread the virus to someone else because his viral load was undetectable. Still, to be on the safe side, he wore a condom when he had sex with a partner. The other man did not contract HIV, but he apparently heard about a new law he could use to hurt Rhoades.

A few weeks later, three detectives with guns showed up at the store where Rhoades worked and asked him to come to the police station for questioning. After that, police took him to the local hospital where a worker drew blood to check his HIV status. Police subpoenaed all his medical records and searched his home.

In the end, the 39-year-old Iowan was charged under Section 709C of Iowa law for being HIV-positive, not disclosing it and having “intimate contact” with someone else. A lawyer advised him to plead guilty, and his criminal justice nightmare began. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, placed on Iowa’s sex offender registry and now owes tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, court costs and restitution.

A judge later reduced the prison sentence, and Rhoades was released. But being placed on the sex offender registry means he’s required to regularly check in with a probation officer. He has to pay for and attend classes, undergo polygraph tests and answer embarrassing questions, such as whether he fantasizes about children.

“I had consensual sex with a grown man, yet I cannot be around minors without supervision by their parents,” he told the editorial board last year. “I could have committed vehicular homicide and gotten a lesser sentence,” he said.

It is unclear what Iowa lawmakers were thinking when they voted for the legislation making it a crime (and imposing ridiculously harsh penalties) to have HIV and engage in sex acts without informing the partner.

The Iowa House approved the legislation 93-0. The Senate approved it without debate or dissent. Gov. Terry Branstad signed it into law. Though this state has relatively few HIV-positive people, Iowa ranks near the top in the country for prosecuting HIV cases even where the person uses protection and the partner of the accused does not contract HIV.

Rhoades has endured humiliation and injustice that is unthinkable for most of us: news reports inaccurately announcing he had “transmitted” HIV, imprisonment, blacklisting, classes for sex offenders and now another hearing where the details of his personal life are publicly rehashed. Yet he knows what has happened to him is wrong, and he doesn’t want others’ lives to be ruined as well.

Regardless of how the three appeals court judges rule in Rhoades case, it is time for Iowa lawmakers to repeal a law that punishes those with HIV who have harmed no one. ..Source.. by Register Editorials