In Michigan, HIV-Positive No Longer Equals Terrorist

In Michigan's Macomb County, being HIV-positive no longer means that you're a terrorist. So says one judge who threw out bioterrorism charges that were filed against an HIV-positive man after he got into a physical fight with his neighbor.

The case goes back several months toward the end of 2009, when Daniel Allen and his neighbor, Winfred Fernandis Jr., came to blows outside their homes. Fists flew, verbal taunts were yelled, and Allen ended up biting Fernandis on the lip.

When the police finally showed up, Allen was taken away and arrested. He was charged with felony assault charges. But then, once Macomb County prosecutor Eric Smith saw a local Fox News report describing Allen as HIV-positive, Smith decided that he needed to punish Allen harder. Using a law cooked up by Michigan legislators after Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma, Smith decided to charge Allen with bioterrorism, or possessing a harmful biological substance.

For Smith, the fact that Allen was HIV-positive was like he was walking around with ticking time bombs inside of him, waiting to tear down people in his wake. By all accounts, it was a gross misuse and misapplication of the Michigan anti-terrorism law (even the authors of that law eventually criticized Smith for labeling HIV-positive people as terrorists), but for months Smith wouldn't cave in to demands to drop the charges. He wanted Allen to be charged with bioterrorism, solely for living with HIV.

More than 1,600 people signed a Change.org petition urging Smith to drop the charges. Several members of the Michigan legislature also spoke out and urged Smith to drop the charges. And several activist groups in the area, including the Michigan Positive Action, took action to demand that Smith drop these charges.

Smith never listened. But a judge certainly heard the message: charging HIV-positive people with terrorism not only is abhorrent, it also sends the message that HIV-positive people are by their very identity criminals, capable of unleashing biological warfare on people at their very whim. And that's not a message that the judge was interested in holding up.

The ruling is set to come out later today, but the Michigan Messenger has the scoop. Judge Peter Maceroni has dismissed the bioterrorism charge, prompting elation from Allen's attorney, James Galen Jr.

"The justice system is designed to protect citizens from injustices. It worked," Galen Jr. said. "There’s a lot of homophobia in this country. And there is stigma attached to those who are themselves HIV-positive. That stigma needs to be smashed. I truly believe this ruling sends a clear message to prosecutors and law enforcement that people should not be treated differently based on a medical condition"

Here's hoping that Judge Maceroni's decision does just that, and sends the message that people shouldn't have their medical conditions used to justify bogus criminal charges.

For Allen's part, he wasted no time in calling out the intent behind the HIV-as-terrorism charge from prosecutors.

“I feel that (the bioterrorism charge) was HIV hatred,” said Allen.

No word on whether Judge Maceroni agrees with that rhetoric, but his dismissal of the terrorism charges certainly shows that efforts to criminalize people living with HIV should not be tolerated by any court, or by any prosecutor's office.

Photo credit: UN Photo/G Pirozzi