Halle Parker, Verite News
SHREVEPORT, La. — When Robert Smith met his future girlfriend in 2010, he needed to take issues slowly. For Smith, no relationship had been straightforward within the years since he was recognized with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. People usually grew to become afraid once they discovered his standing, even working away when he coughed.
The couple waited months to have intercourse till Smith felt he might share his medical standing. To put together her, Smith stated, he took his girlfriend to his job in HIV prevention on the Philadelphia Center, a northwestern Louisiana nonprofit that provides assets to individuals with HIV, which additionally supplied him housing on the time.
Finally, he revealed the information: Smith was recognized with HIV in 1994 and began taking each day antiviral drugs in 2006. The virus might now not be detected in his blood, and he couldn’t transmit it to a sexual associate.
Smith stated his girlfriend appeared comfy realizing his standing. When it got here to intercourse, there was no hesitation, he stated. But a few years later, when Smith needed to interrupt up, he stated, her tone shifted.
“She was like, ‘If you try to leave me, I’m gonna put you in jail,’” recalled Smith, now 68. “At the time, I really didn’t know the sincerity of it.”
After they broke up, she reported him to the police, accusing him of violating a little-known legislation in Louisiana — a felony referred to as “intentional exposure to HIV.” He disputed the allegations, however in 2013 accepted a plea deal to spend six months in jail on the cost. He had just a few months left on parole from a previous conviction on completely different prices, and Smith thought this selection would let him transfer previous the connection sooner. He didn’t notice the conviction would additionally land him on the state’s intercourse offender registry.
For practically twenty years, Smith had handled the stigma related to having HIV; the registry added one other layer of exclusion, severely limiting the place he might stay and work to keep away from minors. Not many individuals wish to rent a intercourse offender, he stated. Smith has been informed by the native sheriff’s workplace he’s not allowed to do easy issues, like go to a public park or a highschool soccer recreation, for the reason that conviction.
“I’ve been undetectable for 15 years, but that law still punishes us,” Smith stated.
Louisiana is one in all 30 states with legal penalties associated to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the legal guidelines have been handed within the Eighties throughout the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, a number of states have amended their legal guidelines to make them much less punitive or repealed them outright, together with Maryland and North Dakota this 12 months.
But Louisiana’s legislation stays among the many harshest. The state is one of five which will require individuals akin to Smith to register as a intercourse offender if convicted, a label that may observe them for over a decade. And state lawmakers thought of a invoice to develop the legislation to use to different sexually transmitted infections, then didn’t move it earlier than the session ended.
Meanwhile, individuals with HIV additionally face the risk that federal funding cuts will have an effect on their entry to remedy, together with prevention efforts, supportive companies, and outreach. Such methods have proved to gradual the HIV/AIDS epidemic, not like the legal guidelines’ punitive strategy.
The tax and home coverage legislation beforehand often called the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will possible have an effect on HIV-positive individuals enrolled in Medicaid by decreasing federal help for Medicaid and limiting eligibility. About 40% of adults below 65 with HIV depend on Medicaid.
The Trump administration proposed in its fiscal 2026 budget request to remove HIV prevention applications on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to cancel a grant that helps fund housing for individuals with HIV. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, the biggest federal fund devoted to supporting HIV-positive individuals, additionally faces cuts. The program serves greater than half of the individuals within the U.S. recognized with HIV, together with in Louisiana, in response to KFF, a well being data nonprofit that features KFF Health News.
Public well being officers preserve that state legal guidelines criminalizing HIV publicity damage efforts to finish the HIV epidemic. Epidemiologists and different experts on AIDS agree that the enforcement of such legal guidelines is commonly formed by worry, not science. For instance, in lots of states that criminalize HIV publicity, individuals dwelling with HIV can face heightened legal penalties for actions that may’t transmit the virus, akin to spitting on somebody. The legal guidelines additional stigmatize and deter individuals from getting examined and remedy, undermining response to the epidemic, consultants say.
At least 4,400 individuals in 14 states have been arrested below these legal guidelines, although information is restricted and the precise quantity is probably going increased, and the arrests aren’t reducing, in response to analyses by UCLA’s Williams Institute.
“ Some people think it’s an issue that’s gone away, and that simply isn’t the case,” stated Nathan Cisneros, a researcher on the Williams Institute.
In Louisiana, a 2022 Williams Institute analysis discovered at the very least 147 allegations reported to legislation enforcement below the state’s HIV legislation from 2011 to mid-2022. Black individuals made up practically three-quarters of the individuals convicted and positioned on the intercourse offender registry. Most have been Black males, like Smith. At the time of the evaluation, Black individuals made up about two-thirds of HIV diagnoses within the state.
“ We see over and over that Black people are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic and disproportionately affected by policing and incarceration in the United States,” Cisneros stated.
Nationally, different marginalized teams akin to girls, intercourse employees, the queer neighborhood, or individuals who overlap throughout a couple of group are additionally disproportionately arrested and prosecuted below related criminalization legal guidelines, Cisneros stated.
Ensnared within the System
Louisiana’s legislation hinges on the requirement that if an individual is aware of they’ve HIV, they need to disclose their HIV standing and obtain consent earlier than exposing somebody to the virus.
Louisiana District Attorneys Association Executive Director Zach Daniels stated these circumstances don’t come up usually and will be tough to prosecute. Daniels stated the intimate nature of the circumstances can result in little proof in help of both aspect, particularly if the accuser doesn’t contract HIV.
When it involves speaking about one’s intercourse life, Daniels stated, “there are often no other witnesses, besides the two participants.”
Louisiana’s legislation is written in order that “intentional exposure” can happen by means of “any means or contact.” That consists of intercourse and needle-sharing, practices identified to transmit the virus. But the language of the legislation is so broad that actions identified to not transmit the virus — like biting or scratching — may very well be included, stated Dietz, the statewide coordinator for the Louisiana Coalition on Criminalization and Health, an advocacy community based by individuals dwelling with HIV that has opposed the legislation.
The broad nature of the legislation creates alternatives for abuse, as the specter of being reported below the legislation can be utilized as a coercive instrument in relationships, stated Dietz, who goes by one identify and makes use of they/them pronouns. Such threats, Dietz stated, have stored individuals in abusive relationships and loomed over little one custody battles. Dietz stated they’ve supported individuals accused of exposing their kids to HIV in methods that aren’t medically potential.
“ ‘Any means or contact’ could be just merely being around your kids,” they stated.
The prosecutors’ group nonetheless helps the legislation as a recourse for emergency responders who, in uncommon cases, come into contact with blood or syringes containing the virus. In one current high-profile case in New Orleans, the legislation was used towards a neighborhood DJ accused of knowingly transmitting HIV to a number of girls with out informing them of his standing or utilizing a condom.
The particular person accused of violating the legislation, not the accuser, should show their case — that they disclosed their HIV standing beforehand. Without a signed affidavit or tape recording, courts can find yourself basing their selections on conflicting testimonies with little supporting proof.
That’s what Smith alleged occurred to him.
After his relationship ended, he stated, he remembered being referred to as into a gathering together with his parole officer the place a detective waited for him, asking about his former relationship and whether or not his girlfriend had identified about his HIV standing.
Smith stated sure. But that’s not what she had informed police.
Verite News couldn’t discover a working telephone quantity for Smith’s former girlfriend however corroborated the story with the incident’s police report. His lawyer on the time, a public defender named Carlos Prudhomme, stated he didn’t keep in mind a lot in regards to the case, and court docket paperwork are sealed as a result of it was a intercourse offense.
In court docket, it was her phrase towards his. So when he was supplied six months in jail as a substitute of the 10-year most, he switched his plea from not responsible to responsible. But he stated he didn’t know his new conviction would require him to register as a intercourse offender as soon as he received out — worsening the stigma.
“When people see ‘sex offender,’ the first thing that comes to their mind is rape, child molester, predator,” Smith stated. “This law puts me in a category that I don’t care to be in.”
He has tried to profit from it, regardless of the expense of paying charges every year to reregister. After being rejected from jobs, he began a catering enterprise and constructed a loyal clientele. But he stated he’s nonetheless caught dwelling in a poorly maintained residence advanced primarily inhabited by intercourse offenders.
“I understand their strategy for creating this law to prevent the spread, but it’s not helping. It’s hurting; it’s hindering. It’s destroying people’s lives instead of helping people’s lives, especially the HIV community,” he stated. “They don’t care about us.”
The Case for Reform
Since 2014, there was a nationwide effort to replace or repeal state legal guidelines that criminalize HIV nondisclosure, publicity, or transmission. A dozen states have modified their legal guidelines to align extra intently with fashionable science, and 4 have gotten rid of them utterly in hopes of decreasing stigma and enhancing public well being outcomes, in response to the Center for HIV Law and Policy.
Sean McCormick, an lawyer with the middle, stated these adjustments are influenced partly by a rising physique of proof displaying the legal guidelines’ unfavourable penalties.
McCormick stated the legal guidelines provide a “clear disincentive” for individuals to get examined for HIV. If they don’t know their standing, there’s no legal legal responsibility for transmission or publicity.
A 2024 survey by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and DLH Corp. researchers discovered that after California up to date its HIV criminalization legislation in 2018, respondents have been extra prone to get examined. Meanwhile, survey respondents in Nevada, which nonetheless had a extra punitive legislation on the books, have been much less prone to get examined.
There’s no one-size-fits-all resolution, McCormick stated. His heart works with HIV-positive individuals throughout the nation to find out what legislative adjustments would work greatest of their states.
Texas was the primary to repeal its HIV law in 1994.
“As a person living with HIV in Texas, I’m deeply appreciative that we don’t have an HIV-specific statute that puts a target on my back,” stated Michael Elizabeth, the general public well being coverage director for the Equality Federation.
But Elizabeth factors out that Texans dwelling with HIV nonetheless face steeper penalties below normal felony legal guidelines for prices akin to aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault after state courts in Texas equated the bodily fluids of an individual with HIV with a “deadly weapon.”
Louisiana activists have pushed lawmakers within the state to amend the legislation in 3 ways: eradicating the intercourse offender registration requirement, requiring transmission to have occurred, and requiring clear intent to transmit the virus.
“Our strategy, as opposed to repeal, is to create a law that actually addresses the kind of boogeyman that they ostensibly created the law for: the person who successfully, maliciously, intentionally transmits HIV,” stated Dietz with the Louisiana Coalition on Criminalization and Health.
In 2018, a invoice to slim the statute was amended in ways in which expanded the legislation. For instance, the up to date legislation now not had any definition of which actions “expose” somebody to HIV.
In 2023, state lawmakers created a activity pressure that really helpful updating Louisiana’s legislation to align with the newest public well being pointers, restrict the potential for unintended penalties, and provides beforehand convicted individuals a approach to clear their document.
Lawmakers within the state House pushed ahead a invoice this 12 months to criminalize different sexually transmitted infections, together with hepatitis B and the herpes simplex virus. That invoice died within the Senate, nevertheless it spurred the creation of one other legislative activity pressure with a virtually equivalent mission to that of the primary.
“ This state has no idea how closely we just dodged a bullet,” Dietz stated.
In the meantime, the Louisiana coalition helps Smith petition the state to take his identify off the intercourse offender registry. Louisiana legislation permits individuals to petition to have their names faraway from the registry after 10 years with none new intercourse crime convictions. Smith expects his case to be authorised by the tip of the 12 months.
Despite the problem of the previous 12 years, he stated, he’s grateful for the prospect to be free from the registry’s restrictions.
“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” Smith stated. “I can do stuff that I wanted to do that I couldn’t. Like, go to a football game. Simple stuff like that, I’m going to be ready to do.”
