A person who infects another person with a sexually transmitted disease could be charged criminally under a bill approved by the House Criminal Justice Committee. Monroe Representative Pat Moore has spent the last six weeks trying to get this proposal out of committee.
“This is someone who knowingly and intentionally infected someone with these incurable diseases,” Moore said.
Moore’s measure calls for a person to be charged with a felony if one person infects another with an incurable STD without that person’s knowledge of the disease. Moore says current Louisiana law only addresses HIV, and her bill would include all sexually transmitted disease that are incurable and a prison sentence of six months or more is possible.
“There should be some penalties on this. When you have a bill and there’s no teeth in it, people are going to feel free that it’s just a gift of pleasure. They can do whatever they want to,” Moore said.
The charge would be a misdemeanor in cases where the STD is curable. The bill passed on a 7-5 vote. Meghan Garvey from the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has issues with the proposal.
“I don’t understand how anyone can successfully prosecute this, first of all, because I don’t even understand what would be probable cause to arrest somebody. I guess it would just be someone’s word,” Garvey said.
Garvey doesn’t see how you can prosecute Moore’s proposed law.
“Unfortunately, Louisiana has a lot of, a high rate of infection, right? But even if you were able to determine that, it’s also my appreciation of this science that you can’t determine who had what first,” Garvey explained.
Moore’s bill heads to the House floor. But with the legislative session set to end on June 12th, there’s not a lot of time for this bill to get both House and Senate approval.
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