Crime and Punishment, with Sex Offenders

I've been struggling a bit to find a suitable topic for this post, mostly because I don't follow the news as closely as I once did.  But while crawling the web tonight, looking for something notable that I could write about (and that interested me), I came across an article that gave me pause.  In short, I think it'll do.  You can see the article for yourself here.

For those not wishing to click through and read the article, I'll summarize.  In June of 2008, two men of an appropriate age engaged in consensual sex.  One of them, named Nick, is HIV-positive.  Despite being aware of his condition, he didn't disclose it to his partner, named Adam, basing the decision around his being on medication and using proper protection.  Three months later, Nick was arrested and charged with criminal transmission of HIV - which, in Iowa (where the incident took place), is a charge comparable to manslaughter, robbery, and kidnapping.  Nick entered a plea of guilty, on the advice of his attorney, even though Adam eventually tested negative for HIV.  The result?  Nick was incarcerated for nine months with a bond of $250,000, and was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison.  He appealed his sentence to the judge, and is now out of prison - although on supervised probation.  He's also had to register as a sex offender, and will have to do so for the rest of his life.

So, was this an appropriate punishment for the crime that took place?  ... Parts of it, I can (mostly) agree with, but I don't agree with most of it.  The only thing that Nick was guilty of was not disclosing his condition to Adam before they engaged in their sexual encounter.  This isn't even remotely okay - if you have a condition, it's your responsibility to inform the other person about it beforehand - both as a responsible human being, and as someone who (assumedly) cares about the person you're doing things with.  Do I believe Nick was at fault for that?  Absolutely.  I don't, however, agree with him being charged with "criminal transmission of HIV".  As stated earlier - no such transmission took place.  How can you rightfully charge someone with something that didn't actually happen?  It's not even like one of the highly-publicized court cases where the jury decided someone was not guilty - there's irrefutable proof that the crime didn't occur.  Does Nick's plea of guilty supercede hard, factual evidence?  This really confuses me, and makes me wonder why we don't have some sort of "common sense clause" to prevent that sort of thing (or, if we do, why it wasn't used).

So, Nick was charged with what he was charged with.  First off, $250,000 bond?  Really?  I mean, for someone who's well-known and, you know, actually has that kind of money, then sure.  But Nick seems like your everyday kind of guy, and most people I know don't have a spare quarter of a million dollars to post for bond.  Why set a bond at all, if it's going to be something so ridiculous?  And as far as the sentencing goes - 25 years in prison seems like a pretty harsh sentence for this kind of thing.  Did Nick screw up?  Absolutely. I don't think he should spend a quarter (or more) of his life in prison because of it (again, especially because of the lack of transmission).  The nine months he spent incarcerated before the trial seems like it was enough, to me.  I don't see the point of the prison sentence.

Now, the bit about registering as a sex offender is where I start getting into my personal gray area.  First off, I want to think out loud (or, in text, as you will) about the concept of a sex offender registration.  What's the purpose of it?  The obvious answer is to identify people who are potentially dangerous and/or of a higher risk to break the law concerning sexual activities.  One of the notable facts about the sex offender registry, however, is that it doesn't differentiate (on the surface) between the different crimes committed.  Looking up an individual on the website does give you details about what they were convicted of, and when - but it requires you to search out that individual person.  On the surface, people like Nick are lumped in with people who have been convicted of child molestation, rape, and the like.  Is this wrong?  ... That's hard to say.  I believe there are changes that could help the system, such as a more visible initial differential between the different crimes, or for lesser crimes, a time-limited registration.  I'm a big believer in second chances for people, and after what he went through with Adam, I would have to believe that Nick isn't likely to fail to disclose his condition again.  Despite this, he'll still have to be a registered sex offender for the foreseeable future, and he'll be more limited in his opportunities because of that.  I know that there's no perfect solution out there for this kind of thing, but it seems wrong to lump all offenders together on a single list, regardless of the nature of their crime.

That's about all I've got for this topic.  Pendleton will be here tomorrow with her topic, and as always, feel free to leave any comments or thoughts below (and on the other entries in our blog).  Thanks for reading.