HIV positive and having sex - Crime?

[Motokid]

Here’s one I heard on the radio yesterday.

Is a person who’s HIV positive, that’s having unprotected sex, but not telling the other consenting adult about their medical condition, committing a crime?

If it were a crime what would you charge them with? Assault? Attempted murder?

And how would you prove in a court of law that this conversation never happened between the two people before the act occurred? If the other adult does not test positive is it still a crime?

 

[Ashlea]

I haven't done research myself, but I understood from a friend of mine that it is possible to sue someone (I believe it was under an "assault" tort) for giving you an incurable STD without disclosure. But yeah, a difficult thing to prove. Also, that is not in a criminal court, but in a civil court, and mostly to get them to cover your medical bills.

This is a very tricky thing to call a "crime" though. What if you don't know you have it? What if you used protection? A lot of variables to consider.

 

[Motokid]

I think the discussion came about because, unfortunately there's a guy somewhere who know's he's HIV positive, and he's been having unprotected sex with many, many people, and he admits to never telling these people he has the disease.

So in a sence he's playing russian roulette with peoples lives and they don't know it.

To me he's committing a crime, but I'm not exactly sure how he should be charged. And I believe the discussion was along the lines of a felony, not a civil judgment. Something punishable by jail time.

 

[Anahorish]

There was a case here last year of a guy who did just that, and he infected quite a few women. I believe he was found guilty of something and received a custodial sentence... I'll see if I can dig it up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/4267433.stm

There we go.

I think it is something he should be punished for. He knew he had something that could potentially kill someone else, so not passing that information on constitutes attemted murder or attempted manslaughter or something imho.

However, the title of this thread made me think that the conversation was about HIV people having sex in general, in which case I think that as long as both parties are informed then it takes two to tango.

 

[Geenh]

Having unprotected sex when HIV positive with unsuspecting adults is certainly a crime! If I poked someone with a needle that was infected, I would go to jail for at least assualt. Why would this be much different?

Even though, it's silly to have unprotected sex.

 

[novella]

Well, at a certain level, crime is about intent.

Was the intent of the person to infect others or just to have sex?

Was the person aware of the danger? (Apparently there are loads of infected people who don't understand how the disease works, particularly in Africa, where that English case guy is from.)

I think there is some societal prejudice at work here. If an infected junkie shares a needle and some other junkie gets infected, the common view is that the second junkie infected himself through his bad habit.

What's the difference here?