Governor Moore recently signed the bill eliminating this measure.
Frederick County Delegate Kris Fair
Frederick, Md (KM) A bill which eliminates the criminalization of HIV transmission was signed into law recently by Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
One of the sponsors of this legislation to do away with this law was Frederick County Delegate Kris Fair. He says the measure to repeal received support across the board because many believe the current law does more harm that good. “And so that’s why the Attorney General, the State’s Attorney’s Association, all of the sexual assault associations and organizations throughout the state of Maryland, all of the advocates, the public defenders, the public health officials, everybody agreed: this specific piece of health code was doing way more harm than it was actually doing good to the public health, and our criminal justice system,” he said.
He also said. “Reasons why it was being charged were for things like where an individual would bite another individual because that technically is an attempt to transfer HIV,'” Fair said. “So basically what was happening is this code was being used as a weapon that said’ any innocuous interaction, if you have HIV, suddenly becomes an attempt to transfer HIV.'”
Delegate Fair also said there’s no evidence that spitting or spreading saliva can lead to HIV infection.
Speaking recently on WFMD”s “Morning News Express,” Delegate Fair said the current law, just repealed, was not very effective in controlling HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. “In the 23 years that they studied this health code that existed with this three-year imprisonment and $2500 fine, they have charged 146 times in over the years, and they only had nine convictions with it,” he says.
Delegate Fair also said this law discouraged those who are at-risk for contracting HIV from getting tested.
Repealing this law brings Maryland in line with current health practices where HIV is addressed as a chronic illness that can be imaged.
For those who knowingly want to transmit the HIV virus, Fair says prosecutors can use the laws against reckless endangerment. “It also applies equally all other sexually transmitted infections. It includes herpes or syphilis or gonorrhea, anything. You are threat to the public health and you are intentionally trying to transmit these infections. So that is the correct way to charge these issues when those, which are extremely rare, do pop up.,”
he said.
With reckless endangerment, Fair says a prosecutor must prove the defendant intended to transfer the HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases to the victim. “You have to show the person was intentionally trying to transmit HIV,'” says Fair.
By Kevin McManus