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. Individuals typically turned afraid once they discovered his standing, even operating away when he coughed.
The couple waited months to have intercourse till Smith felt he might share his medical standing. To arrange her, Smith stated, he took his girlfriend to his job in HIV prevention on the Philadelphia Middle, a northwestern Louisiana nonprofit that provides sources to individuals with HIV, which additionally offered him housing on the time.
Lastly, he revealed the information: Smith was recognized with HIV in 1994 and began taking each day antiviral capsules in 2006. The virus might 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. However 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 known 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 a couple of months left on parole from a previous conviction on completely different expenses, and Smith thought this selection would let him transfer previous the connection quicker. He didn’t notice the conviction would additionally land him on the state’s intercourse offender registry.
For practically 20 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 advised 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 considered one of 30 states with prison penalties associated to exposing or transmitting HIV. Many of the legal guidelines had been handed within the Eighties in the course of 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 yr.
However Louisiana’s legislation stays among the many harshest. The state is considered one of 5 that will require individuals resembling Smith to register as a intercourse offender if convicted, a label that may observe them for over a decade. And state lawmakers thought-about a invoice to broaden the legislation to use to different sexually transmitted infections, then did not go it earlier than the session ended.
In the meantime, individuals with HIV additionally face the menace that federal funding cuts will have an effect on their entry to therapy, together with prevention efforts, supportive providers, and outreach. Such methods have proved to gradual the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in contrast to the legal guidelines’ punitive strategy.
The tax and home coverage legislation beforehand referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will probably have an effect on HIV-positive individuals enrolled in Medicaid by lowering federal assist for Medicaid and limiting eligibility. About 40% of adults beneath 65 with HIV depend on Medicaid.
The Trump administration proposed in its fiscal 2026 finances request to remove HIV prevention applications on the Facilities for Illness Management 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. This system serves greater than half of the individuals within the U.S. recognized with HIV, together with in Louisiana, in accordance with KFF, a well being info nonprofit that features KFF Well being Information.
Public well being officers preserve that state legal guidelines criminalizing HIV publicity damage efforts to finish the HIV epidemic. Epidemiologists and different consultants on AIDS agree that the enforcement of such legal guidelines is usually formed by worry, not science. For instance, in lots of states that criminalize HIV publicity, individuals residing with HIV can face heightened prison penalties for actions that may’t transmit the virus, resembling spitting on somebody. The legal guidelines additional stigmatize and deter individuals from getting examined and therapy, undermining response to the epidemic, consultants say.
A minimum of 4,400 individuals in 14 states have been arrested beneath these legal guidelines, although knowledge is restricted and the precise quantity is probably going increased, and the arrests aren’t lowering, in accordance with 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 evaluation discovered at the least 147 allegations reported to legislation enforcement beneath 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 had been Black males, like Smith. On 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 resembling ladies, intercourse staff, the queer neighborhood, or individuals who overlap throughout multiple group are additionally disproportionately arrested and prosecuted beneath 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 Affiliation Govt Director Zach Daniels stated these circumstances don’t come up typically and might be tough to prosecute. Daniels stated the intimate nature of the circumstances can result in little proof in assist of both aspect, particularly if the accuser doesn’t contract HIV.
In terms of 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 via “any means or contact.” That features intercourse and needle-sharing, practices identified to transmit the virus. However the language of the legislation is so broad that actions identified to not transmit the virus — like biting or scratching — could possibly be included, stated Dietz, the statewide coordinator for the Louisiana Coalition on Criminalization and Well being, an advocacy community based by individuals residing with HIV that has opposed the legislation.
The broad nature of the legislation creates alternatives for abuse, as the specter of being reported beneath the legislation can be utilized as a coercive device in relationships, stated Dietz, who goes by one title 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 youngsters to HIV in methods that aren’t medically doable.
“ ‘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 situations, come into contact with blood or syringes containing the virus. In a single latest high-profile case in New Orleans, the legislation was used in opposition to an area DJ accused of knowingly transmitting HIV to a number of ladies 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. And not using a signed affidavit or tape recording, courts can find yourself basing their choices on conflicting testimonies with little supporting proof.
That’s what Smith alleged occurred to him.
After his relationship ended, he stated, he remembered being known 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. However that’s not what she had advised police.
Verite Information couldn’t discover a working cellphone quantity for Smith’s former girlfriend however corroborated the story with the incident’s police report. His legal professional 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 in opposition to his. So when he was provided six months in jail as a substitute of the 10-year most, he switched his plea from not responsible to responsible. However 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 annually to reregister. After being rejected from jobs, he began a catering enterprise and constructed a loyal clientele. However he stated he’s nonetheless caught residing in a poorly maintained condo 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 trendy science, and 4 have gotten rid of them utterly in hopes of lowering stigma and bettering public well being outcomes, in accordance with the Middle for HIV Regulation and Coverage.
Sean McCormick, an legal professional with the middle, stated these adjustments are influenced partly by a rising physique of proof displaying the legal guidelines’ adverse penalties.
McCormick stated the legal guidelines supply a “clear disincentive” for individuals to get examined for HIV. In the event that they don’t know their standing, there’s no prison legal responsibility for transmission or publicity.
A 2024 survey by Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and DLH Corp. researchers discovered that after California up to date its HIV criminalization legislation in 2018, respondents had been extra prone to get examined. In the meantime, survey respondents in Nevada, which nonetheless had a extra punitive legislation on the books, had 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 legislation 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.
However Elizabeth factors out that Texans residing with HIV nonetheless face steeper penalties beneath normal felony legal guidelines for expenses resembling 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 Well being.
In 2018, a invoice to slim the statute was amended in ways in which expanded the legislation. For instance, the up to date legislation not had any definition of which actions “expose” somebody to HIV.
In 2023, state lawmakers created a activity drive that really helpful updating Louisiana’s legislation to align with the most recent public well being tips, restrict the potential for unintended penalties, and provides beforehand convicted individuals a technique to clear their document.
Lawmakers within the state Home pushed ahead a invoice this yr to criminalize different sexually transmitted infections, together with hepatitis B and the herpes simplex virus. That invoice died within the Senate, but it surely spurred the creation of one other legislative activity drive with a virtually equivalent mission to that of the primary.
“ This state has no idea how closely we just dodged a bullet,” Dietz stated.
Within the meantime, the Louisiana coalition helps Smith petition the state to take his title 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 accredited by the tip of the yr.
Regardless of 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.”
