Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Louisiana case to test law against spreading AIDS virus Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 16:10:35 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD Louisiana case to test law against spreading AIDS virus \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT NEW ORLEANS NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Twenty-five states outlaw passing or purposely exposing others to the AIDS virus, but only recently have such laws been invoked. Now a Louisiana case is receiving what may be their first constitutional challenge. As two other high-profile cases work their way through courts in Oregon, Salvadore Gamberella is on trial this week for allegedly breaking Louisiana's 5-year-old law against exposing anyone to AIDS. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion in the District Court in Houma, near the Gulf Coast, seeking to get the charges thrown out on grounds the law is too vague and violates the Constitution's equal protection clause. Mr. Gamberella, 28, of Houma, is the first person charged under Louisiana's law, said attorney Denise LeBoeuf, who represents the ACLU in the case. Her client is accused of exposing a former girlfriend and their child to AIDS by having sex with the woman without telling her he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS. He says he told her before they ever had sex. The baby has tested negative for HIV; the woman's HIV status is expected to be brought out during the trial. If convicted, Mr. Gamberella faces up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. State District Judge Baron Bourg agreed to hear the ACLU challenge after the trial, which is allowed by state law. The trial began Monday. About 300 people around the country have faced charges that they purposely tried to infect someone with HIV, said Harvard Professor Lawrence Gostin, who heads the U.S. Public Health Service AIDS Litigation Project. However, most of those were prosecuted under laws that don't mention AIDS, on conventional charges such as attempted murder or assault with a deadly weapon, he said. Less commonly used are laws first passed in 1986 in which transmitting or exposing someone to AIDS infection without their knowledge was made a criminal offense. Fewer than a dozen persons around the country face charges similar to those against Mr. Gamberella, Mr. Gostin said. Mr. Gostin said AIDS-specific laws such as Louisiana's can backfire. "They say to people with HIV infection, 'It's better for you not to know than to know. Because if you never get tested and never know, you're not liable under these laws,' " he said. "That's the very opposite of the message that we're trying to get across." The Louisiana law states: "No person shall intentionally expose another to any acquired immunity deficency syndrome virus through sexual contact without the knowing and lawful consent of the victim." That doesn't make clear what the infected person must tell a potential sex partner and what other behavior is illegal, said Miss LeBoeuf, the attorney for the ACLU. An HIV-infected person could be prosecuted simply for "bringing a sex partner into contact with saliva, tears and urine, since they can expose a person to the virus, though this type of exposure cannot infect the person," he said. Two Oregon cases involve both the old and new kinds of AIDS prosecutions. Alberto Gonzalez, 28, is charged with attempted murder by trying to infect a 17-year-old girl with AIDS when he had sex with her two years ago. She has shown no sign of AIDS infection so far. His trial began Monday in Portland. In 1991 Gonzalez pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment for having sex with a former girlfriend who now has AIDS. He was sentenced to sexual abstinence for five years and to house arrest for six months. In the other case, Adam Brown, 30, of Roseburg, is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow on charges he had unprotected sex with five children ranging in age from 2 to 8 while knowing he was HIV-infected. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM