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1 Brad Sears, Williams Institute Research on HIV Criminalization: Statement 1 (2020)

handle is hein.lgbtqwi/wirhc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Williams Institute Research on HIV Criminalization Statement of Dean Brad Sears Associate Dean of Public Interest Law, UCLA School of Law David Sanders Distinguished Scholar, the Williams Institute August 6, 2020 The Williams Institute has conducted extensive research on the criminalization of HIV. This statement summarizes the trends we have seen in conducting research for California, Florida, eoria, and Missouri. Thirty-four states in the U.S. have laws that explicitly criminalize the conduct of people living with HIV (PLWH). Enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, these laws were passed in a period of uncertainty and fear at the height of the AIDS epidemic. They are now out of step with core principles of criminal law and no longer align with the significant advances that have been made in the treatment and prevention of HIV. For instance: Almost none of these laws require that someone actually infect another person with HIV before being liable for a felony punishable by years of imprisonment; Almost none of these laws require a person to specifically intend to infect another person with HIV; and The vast majority of these laws criminalize behaviors that we now know cannot possibility transmit HIV including spitting, biting, oral sex, and sex while using a condom or sex when the person with HIV has an undetectable viral load. For these reasons, the Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a number of public health, medical, and legal professional organizations in the U.S. have called for the repeal or modernization of HIV criminal laws. Over the past five years, Williams Institute researchers have provided critical, original research that has provided more comprehensive information about the impact of HIV criminal laws. To date, we have completed intensive research studies on the enforcement of HIV criminal laws for California, Florida, Georgia, and Missouri. Ten major trends from these studies are summarized below.