Trial for a Lawrence man charged with exposing multiple women to HIV has been put on hold because of a constitutional challenge to the law he's charged with breaking.
The first of four HIV-exposure trials for 30-year-old Robert W. Richardson II was scheduled to begin today, but prosecutors dropped the case in a hearing Tuesday morning in District Court. Dist. Atty. Charles Branson said he also plans to drop Richardson's three other pending cases - but all four cases will be re-filed as soon as today and consolidated into one case.
Defense attorney Thomas Johnson filed a motion Aug. 7 arguing that the state law Richardson is charged with breaking - a felony called "exposing another to a life-threatening communicable disease" - is overly broad and unconstitutional.
"All sex by persons who have knowledge that they are infected by a life-threatening disease is subject to prosecution," he wrote. "A statute this broad would be violative of an individual's liberty rights and due process."
Robert W. Richardson II was charged with exposing four women to HIV in Douglas County. The charges have temporarily been dropped, but prosecutors plan to consolidate all four cases into one and refile charges.
Branson said his office now needs more time to research the law, which apparently has never been tested despite being on the books since the early 1990s.
During a pretrial hearing Monday, prosecutors asked for the first trial to be delayed to give them more time to respond to Johnson's motion, but Judge Stephen Six denied the request.
"This case will be tried," Branson said Tuesday. "The constitutionality of this issue is going to be decided. The only thing this is is the process. This has nothing to do with the strength or weakness of either side's case."
The law was enacted in the early 1990s, but Branson said it appeared this would have been the first time a case charged under the law had gone to trial.
He said his attorneys needed more time to research the history of the bill, legislators' intent in drafting it and similar laws in other states. Regardless of which side wins, he said, the case is bound to be appealed.
"We believe that it's appropriate for us to put together the best arguments that we can," he said.
Richardson remained in jail Tuesday evening and has an HIV-related case pending in Lyon County with bond set at $50,000. Branson said Richardson would have a new bond set in the consolidated Douglas County case.
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cowboy (anonymous) says…
i have never understood how defense attorneys can do this job and go home at night
aquakej (anonymous) says…
It turns out there is hope for more of you ugly men out there after all! Get your asses to the bar!
prioress (anonymous) says…
"i have never understood how defense attorneys can do this job and go home at night."
Last time I looked, it was called the Constitution of the United States. Everyone likes to badmouth attorneys, until they hope they can buy the best one available to try and help them.
craigers (anonymous) says…
I completely agree cowboy. I couldn't try to defend somebody that I felt was guilty.
xenophonschild (anonymous) says…
craigers:
You would if you were a criminal defense attorney and had children to feed and bills to pay.
Under our system of laws, everyone deserves legal representation. Professional ethics require attorneys to do a credible job for their clients.
Jamesaust (anonymous) says…
"A statute this broad would be violative of an individual's liberty rights and due process."
You know, I really dislike newspaper reports that don't flesh out the meat of the point. Surely, there was an actual argument made that had some detail to it. You can't just make some vague allegation and then toss this to others to refute.
Editor: what exactly was the argument? There should be a motion filed with the court.
Laura (anonymous) says…
I'm still laughing at Vince's comment. That's the first thing I thought when I saw this guy. I'd have to be drunk to the point of comatose to even touch this guy!
crazyks (anonymous) says…
Liberty rights? What about the "liberty rights" of the women he tried to infect??
amazed (anonymous) says…
Look around people. I see much uglier people every day in this town.
acg (anonymous) says…
Yes, amazed, and a lot of them are hooked up with good looking folks. It's dumbfounding! This guy must have been quite the charmer because all of that skanky, kinky hair, to me, is gross.
Easy_Does_It (anonymous) says…
Esq2eb - weak logic at best. The women did not have full disclosure of what the State (you and me) consider important facts.
This sharing of information is basic to most laws in the US, simple example is insider trading.
craigers (anonymous) says…
xeno, I understand that but that is why I couldn't ever be a defense attorney. I couldn't work to get somebody off for a crime I knew they committed. I couldn't sleep knowing that I kept rapists, murderers, predators, etc out on the street. Especially if I had a wife and kids. Criminals need to be locked up, regardless if there is a loophole they can get aquitted on.
Laura (anonymous) says…
Craigers: most defense attorneys spend their time representing people who write bad checks, or violate TROs, or get DUIs, or break windows at the local school. In short, most defense attorneys have to deal with the whining "it wasn't my fault" part of society. I've worked as a defense attorney and it was truly awful. I'd rather be a Hooters waitress, an occupation I used to think would be the worst job in the world (with the same clientele).
justsomewench (anonymous) says…
where's Marion?
cowboy (anonymous) says…
Good post Laura !
I understand the whole rights issue but just can't see the daily decision of I'm going to go defend scum of the earth today , OH Boy I feel great , its all about money !
Easy_Does_It (anonymous) says…
Esq. - If I rob a bank it doesn't make me any less guilty if the bank doesn't have an armed guard at the door. It's a question of his guilt not the victim's foolishness.
I drive through a bad part of town, get shot. Is the person who shot me innocent because I should have known better?
Easy_Does_It (anonymous) says…
I've never considered sex a provication. Again banks usually have the doors open every business day, but the minute I pull out a gun the facts have changed. What you are saying is that they assume the risk of me pulling that gun and were guilty by letting me in the door. If I anounce before I come in "I got a gun" then they would probably act differently.
Simple - would you behave differently if you knew someone has HIV, or a loaded gun? Probably so.
Laura (anonymous) says…
Esq2eb: You sound like you're in law school, throwing around your new-found terminology like "assumption of risk." That's a tort concept and what this guy did to these women is nothing short of criminal. Why don't you ask a relevant question, like whether or not Kinky Ponytail Boy had the requisite mens rea?
gr (anonymous) says…
fact: hiv and Aids exist.
FACT: One way to get them is to have unprotected sex.
FACT: If you have unprotected sex, regardless of what the other tells you, you greatly increase your odds of getting these or other diseases.
Question: Should anyone feel sorry for the women? What if they had only received a non-threatening disease - does that change anything?
Laura (anonymous) says…
"Should anyone feel sorry for the women?"
Hell, no . . . let's criticize them and judge them. After all, I've never done anything stupid, have you?
gr (anonymous) says…
Actually, I have.
But, if I jump off a roof and hurt myself, I wouldn't expect anyone to feel sorry for me. Would you?
Laura (anonymous) says…
Yes, I would feel sorry for you if you jumped off the roof and hurt yourself.
Gr, you can feel badly that someone is finding herself in a terrible situation that may or may not have been of her own making without sanctioning the action that caused the situation.
gr (anonymous) says…
Well, maybe there is a difference in words. I don't feel sorry for them, but I feel sad for them. Maybe there could be better words to describe it.
Laura (anonymous) says…
Oh, sorry, gr. I mis-read your question.
No, I don't think I would expect anyone to feel sorry for me if I had unprotected sex with a man who turned out to be HIV-positive and eager to share that health issue. I think I'd be too damn busy trying to figure out a way to move on and stay alive for a bit.
However, as a non-infected person in a monogamous relationship, I feel sorry for women who foolishly have sex with guys who turn out to be complete and utter heels.
Laura (anonymous) says…
Okay, yes . . . sad is a very good word in this context. I feel sad for them, too.
gr (anonymous) says…
Laura, do you think Esq2eb might mean it the same way?
reginafliangie (anonymous) says…
Now this is just a thought and it's not to place blame in anyway. But given this subjects record for several women, and basically how he looks, I am wondering if maybe drugs were involved somehow. You know, "sleep with me and I will give you some good stuff". Just a thought as to how this man got so many women, because I can't grasp it. Yucky.
gr (anonymous) says…
Everyone keeps talking about how bad he looks. A guy in a pony tail. I've seen lots of them. Like Amazed, I've seen uglier. Ones with what looks like barbed wire poking out of their face, and a matted rat's nest tied to their head. But, then I've seen girls looking that way, too.
crazyks (anonymous) says…
Regardless of whether the women decided to have unprotected sex with him, where is his responsibility here? He knew he had HIV, and he deliberately had sex with people, knowing they might get it. Probably hoping they'd get it.
What was his motive?
Believe it or not, there are some people out there with AIDS and HIV who want to deliberately infect as many people as possible before they die. They're mad because they got infected, and they want payback. Doesn't seem to matter to them that the people they're hurting had nothing to do with it.
Whenever you have sex, protected or not, you take a risk of STDs. Even if you are in what you believe to be a monogamous relationship. Who among you has decided to never have sex because there's risk involved?
Most people, though they may know there's a risk, don't think it will happen to them.
crazyks (anonymous) says…
Gr, if you jumped off a roof and hurt yourself, I'd probably think you were a damned idiot. But I'd still sympathize with your pain, and help out by driving you to the store and such with your crutches.
Because, just because you made the wrong decision doesn't mean your pain isn't real anyway.
sweetpeagj (anonymous) says…
I know woman who Lied to my ex to get him to have sex with her..guess what? Next morning raging herpes outbreak. I laughed at him because she used to be a friend of mine snd when she started sniffing around him I told him she had herpes and not to go there but she said she was clean to him and that was all that matters. Of course, in this day and age practicing unsafe sex with anyone is nuts. To much out there you cant cure anymore.
Laura (anonymous) says…
Oh, okay. Sorry, esq. It's just you sounded very sassy bandying about your legalisms and it reminded me of when the 3Ls all tried to work "totality of the circumstances" into any sentence, even when ordering a pizza. To-wit: "Given the totality of the circumstances, I believe we will have both a pepperoni and a vegetarian pizza, please."
My apologies.
(And my ACT scores weren't so great thanks to a pre-ACT test party the night before.)
crazyks (anonymous) says…
Well, then Esq, I guess everyone who has sex at all takes that risk, and goes into it with eyes wide open, because there are very few adults who are celibate.
There is no such thing as totally safe sex. There is no condom or spermicide or anything else that is 100% effective against hiv, aids, or any other STD.
So I guess all of us who are sexually active take that risk a lot, with eyes wide open. The percentage of risk may increase with unprotected sex (not safe sex; there is no such thing anymore), but all of us, if we are sexually active, take a risk every time we're intimate with someone.
There is a certain amount of trust involved whenever you are intimate with someone, but especially if you're married. If people are married, most assume they're in a monogamous relationship, and they don't have to worry about STDs. This isn't always the case. Some have found out later that they were monogamous, but their partner wasn't.
So, if you have sex at all, even with a condom, you're still taking that risk for hiv, aids, and other STDs. It's not just people who have one night stands or short-term relationships.
How many of you who don't feel sorry for the girls are totally celibate?
RichardCory (anonymous) says…
Once again, we find ourselves making up information, so that we can write the girls off as "not like us" and make ourselves feel safe.
Unless I'm missing something, I can't find anywhere in the article where it mentions unprotected sex. If you'll research the past articles on here, one of the women testified that they WERE using a condom, she noticed that he'd slipped it off during sex, and she stopped everything immediately. Nor does the article mention that these were random girls he picked up at the bar. The assumption, since there are multiple girls involved, is that these were random hookups, but let's stop and imagine for a minute that it was your friend, sister, daughter, etc, that thought they were in a monogamous, wonderful relationship with someone who turned out to be a monster that was really carrying on as many "monogamous" relationships as possible at the same time, in an attempt to infect as many women as possible. Let's wait for the facts to come out before we write people off. Some of you may be shocked.
Finally, Marion posted some sites earlier with shots of this guy, when he hadn't been in jail for days. He doesn't look anything like he does in the picture that the LJWorld keeps posting - much more like something out of an Abercrombie ad - it's weird. Maybe not my cup of tea, but I can certainly understand why women would find him appealing. Much better looking than 95% of the people you see walking down on Mass Street. But it is easier to not worry about things like this happening, if you tell yourself you'd never be attracted to someone that was HIV positive.