> Associated Press
> 16 July 2005
> http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=62865
>
> Accused HIV spreader puts Atlanta's gay community on edge
>
> ATLANTA -- Garry Wayne Carriker was a fourth-year medical student with a
> charming style that he worked to his advantage around the city's bustling
> gay scene.
>
> But just months after he would have graduated from Emory University
> Medical School, Carriker's career is on hold as he sits in jail, awaiting
> trial on sex-crime charges that have put Atlanta's gay community on edge.
>
> His crime? Police say the 26-year-old knew he had the HIV virus but went
> ahead with unprotected consensual sex with another man without warning
> him. And then, when Carriker was released on bond in March, he was
> arrested on similar charges in a nearby county. Twice.
>
> Carriker's case is one of the first in Georgia prosecuted on charges of
> knowingly transmitting the HIV virus through consensual sex. It brings the
> state into the vortex of an ongoing legal debate that pits a growing
> public health crisis against the bounds of privacy.
>
> Prosecutors have dusted off a rarely used Georgia law to charge Carriker
> with felony reckless misconduct, which could keep him in prison for 10
> years.
>
> "It's like shooting bullets into the crowd," said Atlanta attorney Adam
> Jaffe, who is arguing a civil lawsuit against Carriker. "Eventually
> someone's going to get killed."
>
> Some activists argue that criminalizing HIV discourages people at risk
> from being tested and cripples prevention efforts.
>
> "From a public health perspective, the most important thing is that both
> sexual partners, not just the HIV-positive one, take responsibility for
> preventing infection," said Joel Ginsberg, interim director of the San
> Francisco-based Gay & Lesbian Medical Association. "Criminal prosecution
> could undermine public health if it discourages testing."
>
> Carriker had been dating John Withrow for five months when he revealed to
> him in April 2004 that he had the virus that causes AIDS, according to
> incident reports.
>
> Citing a little-known statute that makes it a felony for not disclosing
> one's HIV status, a distraught Withrow was turned down by several
> reluctant attorneys before prosecutors in tight-knit suburban Fayette
> County, where Withrow lives, decided to press charges.
>
> "The reason I came forward to file a complaint was to stop him from
> victimizing someone else," said Withrow, who said he has not yet tested
> positive for the virus.
>
> Carriker posted bond, but since then, two other men, both in Atlanta's
> Fulton County, have claimed Carriker had unprotected sex with them and
> failed to disclose his HIV status. Superior Court Judge Johnnie Caldwell
> Jr. revoked Carriker's $5,600 bond and now he faces three counts of felony
> reckless conduct.
>
> Prosecutors must now prove that Carriker knew he had HIV during the
> alleged relationships and did not warn his partners he was infected.
>
> Carriker, a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, could not be
> reached for comment. His attorney in the Fayette charges, George Sparrow,
> did not return repeated telephone calls over two weeks. Clay Collins, who
> is representing Carriker in the Fulton cases, would not comment on the
> case, aside from saying it is "on track" and could be tried in September.
>
> Carriker's arrest sent a jolt through Atlanta's vibrant gay community. The
> city's Midtown section, where many gays party in clubs, is where two of
> the alleged victims say they met Carriker. One concerned activist launched
> a Web site devoted to the case that, until recently, posted Carriker's
> photo, listed the clubs he frequented, and urged visitors to get tested if
> they were involved with him.
>
> Withrow's attorneys say the case is a reminder that gay men who believe
> their lovers knowingly exposed them to the virus have legal recourse.
>
> "They don't want to go to police and tell them they had unprotected sex,"
> said Tom Nagel, one of Withrow's attorneys. "I'm sure it's happened many
> times before, but people aren't comfortable going into a police department
> telling a bunch of big burly guys with guns."
>
> Nagel turned to a rarely used statute in Georgia, which is one of 28
> states with specific laws that make it a crime for HIV-infected people to
> purposefully expose others to the disease, according to the American Civil
> Liberties Union.
>
> Between 1986 and 2001, there were only 316 criminal HIV prosecutions in
> the United States, said Zita Lazzarini, who directs the health law
> division at the University of Connecticut's School of Medicine. In
> contrast, tens of thousands of sexual assault cases are filed every year.
>
> Lazzarini and two other scientists pored over HIV data for four years to
> try to link legislation criminalizing HIV exposure to a decrease in
> incidents. The result: "It is hard to say that these random prosecutions,
> which happen somewhat rarely, are going to change what people do around
> the country or in a particular state," she said. The culprits, she said,
> "don't realize it's a law, they don't think they'll get caught and they
> don't think they'll get punished."
>
> What irks some gay activists is the tacit _ and perhaps deadly _
> assumption that Carriker's case brings to light. Many in the gay
> community, Ginsberg said, assume that if one partner doesn't ask if the
> other is HIV-positive, then he is willing to run the risk of infection.
>
> HIV apathy is no news to national gay groups, some which have aggressively
> worked to compel at-risk populations to be proactive in protecting
> themselves. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation has run a series of ads
> targeting gays who assume their partners aren't infected just because they
> aren't volunteering their HIV status by asking "How do you know what you
> know?"
>
> Ginsberg said this kind of attitude makes both parties culpable.
>
> "It's fuzzier than simply walking into a crowded area and shooting a gun,"
> he said. "The infected should, of course, be responsible, but the partner
> shouldn't be infallible, either."
>
> Others say forcibly disclosing one's HIV status is a privacy breach. And
> the legislation's one-size-fits-all nature, which in many states makes no
> distinction between protected and unprotected sex, allows some prosecutors
> to abuse the statute's intent, said Lazzarini, who co-authored "HIV and
> the Law."
>
> To Al Dixon, the Fayette assistant district attorney who is trying the
> Carriker case, it's a clear-cut moral issue.
>
> "If you're going to have a sexual relationship with someone, they have the
> right to know whether you have HIV," he said. "That's the only privacy
> issue I can think of."