Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune - June 4, 2002
James Janega, Tribune staff reporter
The case has also drawn questions from national public policy groups and HIV/AIDS activists about the effectiveness of state laws that make intimate contact illegal for those who know they have HIV.
"There's no question people are taking notice of this case," said Ann Fisher, executive director of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, one of several groups following the case of Nikko Briteramos, 18, whose March arrest sparked a South Dakota public health investigation and an upcoming special on MTV.
Briteramos, a freshman at Si Tanka-Huron University in Huron, S.D., pleaded not guilty to charges that he had sex with his girlfriend without telling her that he was HIV positive.
Briteramos is now represented by James Koch, who said he has taken the case pro bono, but would not comment further because of a judicial gag order.
Legal scholars and public interest groups have debated HIV transmission criminal statutes since the mid-1980s.
Central to the discussion is whether it is counterproductive to make it illegal to expose others to HIV only after being diagnosed with it. The best defense then, opponents argue, is never to be tested for HIV.
More than 30 states, including Illinois, now have such statutes in place. Most were adopted in the 1990s, and HIV criminal statutes are being debated in other states as well.
Proponents of such laws point to the 1997 case of Nushawn Williams, who admitted exchanging drugs for unprotected sex with more than 50 women and teenage girls in New York, and Darnell "Boss Man" McGee, who had sex with more than 100 women and girls in the St. Louis area before his death in a 1997 robbery.
"It's a rare occurrence," Lambda Legal Defense Fund senior staff attorney Heather Sawyer said of the Williams and McGee cases. "It doesn't reflect the vast majority of people living with HIV."
Even prosecutors generally prefer other criminal statutes, like aggravated battery or attempted murder, to prosecute deliberate HIV transmission. The Illinois law, enacted in 1989, has been used only a handful of times, and a little more than 100 HIV transmission cases have been prosecuted nationwide.
Once convicted under such statutes, defendants are hard-pressed to have the case overturned, said Carolyn McAllaster, professor of AIDS law at the Duke University School of Law.
"When all they have to show is that you knew you were HIV infected, and presumably they have the testimony of a victim [that they weren't told about a risk of HIV exposure], I think it's tough to beat," she said.
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