Iowa Supreme Court Overturn Man's "Criminal Transmission of HIV" Conviction

(Nick Rhoades & Gov. Terry Branstad)

I wrote last year about Iowa's criminal HIV transmission law. At the center of this law was an otherwise healthy HIV-positive man named Nick Rhoades whose medication compliance and healthy lifestyle made his viral load medically undetectable. He had sex -- wearing a condom -- with another man, but didn't tell that man that he is HIV-positive. The man later found out and reported Rhoades to the police. Despite the fact that they practiced safer sex and that his sex partner did not acquire the disease, Rhoades was convicted of "criminal transmission" of HIV and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His felony conviction was eventually reduced to time served, but Rhoades remained on Iowa's sex offender registry.

Then earlier this spring, Iowa's legislature updated our criminal HIV transmission law to make it less draconian. As a result of this revised law, Rhoades would be removed from Iowa's sex offender registry effective July 1, 2014.

(And frankly, why was he placed on a sex offender registry in the first place? People have this idea that these registries are to protect children from convicted child molesters, but then we hear about people on the list who got convicted for having consensual, condom-wearing sex, but who didn't tell that partner about their HIV status. Not to mention guys who get caught pissing on a building or flashing their junk at other when they were drunken college students. It's situations like these that make sex offender registries seem really pointless, IMHO as always. But I'm digressing...)

Anyway, Rhoades finally saw a day in the very near future where he no longer had to wear an electronic monitoring anklet and where he no longer had to get permission from a probation officer to travel from his community. But he was still a convicted felon.

Now he's not. The Iowa Supreme Court overturned Nick Rhoades' felony conviction of criminal transmission of HIV earlier today:

Rhoades, 39, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to criminal transmission of HIV after a 2008 arrest. The arrest came after Rhoades had protected sex with a man to whom he did not disclose his HIV status. The man later went to the police. The man did not test positive for HIV after their encounter, but under the law transmission does not have to occur for someone to be convicted. 

Rhoades began serving his sentence before a District Court judge released him on a five-year probation. He also was required to register as a sex offender. Rhoades appealed the case, arguing his original trial attorney gave him faulty advice by recommending he plead guilty. 

The Iowa Supreme court agreed. "His trial counsel allowed Rhoades to plead guilty when no factual basis existed for the plea," wrote Justice David Wiggins in the majority opinion. Because Rhoades used a condom and because he had an undetectable viral load -- meaning the level of the HIV in his blood was very low, making transmission unlikely -- his conviction was unjust, Wiggins wrote.

Unfortunately, this case is not necessarily over. The case has been sent back to the Black Hawk County District Court. They may choose to prosecute Rhoades again for criminal transmission of HIV.