Gov. Jay Inslee expected to sign bill to reduce the penalty for exposing a partner to HIV
The crime of intentionally exposing a partner to the HIV virus would be lowered from a felony to a misdemeanor under a bill that the Washington state Senate approved Tuesday.
The bill -- which passed by a 26-23 vote -- moves to Gov. Jay Inslee, who is expected to sign it into law, a spokesman said.
The vigorous debate over HB 1551 focused on the change in the criminal penalty, but most of the the bill requested by the state Department of Health updates a law that the Legislature approved in 1988 that sought to control communicable diseases, said state Sen. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma.
“We are going to increase testing with this bill. We are going to extend and save lives,” said Darneille, a former executive director of the Pierce County AIDS Foundation.
Some Republican senators said they could have supported the bill if it did not change the penalty for knowingly infecting a partner with HIV. Currently, it’s a felony that carries a sentence of up to life in prison and a $50,000 fine.
The bill would make it a misdemeanor, with a sentence up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. If a person lies about his or her HIV status to a partner, the crime is a gross misdemeanor, with a sentence up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Republicans offered three amendments that were rejected by the Democrats who control the chamber. The amendments would have maintained the crime as a felony, or made it a felony if a person was charged repeatedly.
In opposing the amendments, state Sen. Marko Liias, D-Lynnwood, said he understood why lawmakers made the offense a felony at a time in the late 1980s when “there was a meaningful and understandable concern about the spread of HIV.”
But three decades later, the law has led to fewer people getting treatment and access to resources, including transgender women of color who are victims of violence and undocumented immigrants who are afraid of their status in the country, Liias said.
“We just no longer believe, as we did in 1988, that it should be the only felony; the only disease listed as a felony...We are scaling it back to recognize that we are in a new era where there is treatment available and we should take all public health seriously, not singling one disease and one community out,” he said.
State Sen. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, said she opposed the bill because it included the change in the criminal offense.
“The reality is this should be a felony. This is someone who is going out with malice and intent,” she said.