By DYANA BAGBY
Friday, May 20, 2005
An HIV-positive man has been indicted in Fayette and Fulton counties on felony criminal charges for allegedly engaging in consensual sex with three other men without disclosing his HIV status, a violation of Georgia law. Gary Wayne Carriker, 26, of Fayetteville, is charged with one count of reckless conduct in Fayette County and two counts of reckless conduct in Fulton County. All three charges are felonies.
John Withrow, the 25-year-old man whose complaint led to the criminal charge against Carriker in Fayette County, also filed a civil suit in State Court in February against Carriker, claiming he has "suffered extreme and severe emotional distress arising from the fear of developing HIV."
"This is not really a money case," said Adam Jaffe, an attorney for Withrow, who lives in Peachtree City. "Our interest is to make sure [Carriker] does not do this again."
Carriker, a medical student at Emory University, did not respond to an email or calls to his home in Fayetteville from Southern Voice seeking comment. His attorney, H. Clay Collins of Fairburn, did not return calls by press time.
In his April 2 response to the civil suit, Carriker denies the allegations and requests the civil suit be dismissed.
Carriker was arrested in November in Fayette County for allegedly having consensual unprotected sex with Withrow between Dec. 10, 2003, and April 30, 2004, without informing him he was HIV-positive, according to an arrest warrant [...] Carriker was arrested in Atlanta on April 18 and again on April 25 and charged with reckless conduct after two men alleged Carriker did not inform them of his HIV status before engaging in sex with them in separate incidents. Carriker was released on $25,000 bond.
Carriker allegedly engaged in consensual oral sex with one of the men between Jan. 8 and Jan 25, 2005, according to his May 10 indictment in Fulton Superior Court.
The man told police he had consensual sex with Carriker several times before Carriker disclosed he was HIV-positive on Jan. 25, 2005, according to an incident report from the Atlanta Police Department.
“[He] stated that he met Wayne Carriker in late December of 2004 and they began dating and having consensual oral sex inside his vehicle” and inside his condominium in Midtown, according to the March 28 police report.
The indictment in Fulton also charges Carriker with having consensual oral and anal sex with a second Midtown man without disclosing his HIV status between June 1, 2004, and Aug. 31, 2004.
According to the Fulton indictment, Carriker is accused of “knowingly engaging in consensual sex without disclosing that the accused was an HIV-infected person, thereby consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that sex without disclosure of HIV infection would endanger the safety” of the named partner. The law is seldom used in Fulton County, according to a spokesperson for the Fulton County District Attorney....
Right.
See, here's the problem with these sorts of laws.
First, they single out HIV in a way that's generally not justifiable. There are other sexually transmitted diseases that are incurable (herpes, hepatitis C, among a few); there are even other sexually transmitted diseases that can be eventually fatal -- vide the previously mentioned hepatitis C. Yet HIV is singled out in a way that seems to have been meant as a legal gaybashing. (In the event, it seems to have worked out primarily as a way of legal ethnic-minority bashing; it's enforced either against gay men when the state is absolutely forced to do so, as in this case, or against minority men who have had sex with women.)
But really, the major problem with this sort of law is: if you unknowingly and/or uncaringly have unprotected sex with someone who is HIV-positive ... it's pretty much your own damned fault.
There are exceptions, of course. People who think that they have a monogamous relationship and discover the hard way that their partner has been having sex outside the relationship. Maybe the condom breaks at just the wrong moment, or doesn't get used properly. People who are sexually assaulted. But really, outside of those types of things, you can largely control your exposure.
Frankly, I would not ask someone with whom I had a fairly casual relationship if they were positive. I would just assume it and act accordingly.
Having oral sex without a condom is at least arguably risky, although probably a small risk -- that said, you are of course risking other STDs, such as oral gonorrhea and syphilis and hepatitis. Having anal sex with someone whom you have only "asked [...] several times if he was 'disease and drug free'" is simply lunatic. People lie. People don't know. People are mistaken. If you haven't seen several negative test results from them, and you wish to remain negative yourself, then use your damn brain.
It would be nice to be able to trust that people wouldn't lie to you, or that they would know for certain, and you could act accordingly. But that isn't the world we live in. Hasn't been for at least 20 years.
Posted by iain at May 23, 2005 02:43 PM
