UPDATE: Michael Johnson (Black, Gay ,HIV+ Man) Released From Prison Early!

Michael Johnson (left) with Dr. Steve Thrasher

There's an exciting update in the ongoing saga of Michael Johnson (also known as "Tiger Mandingo"), a Black gay man with HIV who at the age of 23 in 2015 was sentenced to 30-years in prison for knowingly exposing several gay men to HIV (some of whom subsequently tested positive for HIV later). Johnson's case was a textbook case of HIV stigma combined with racial animus leading to a problematic criminal justice result. Happily, this conviction was overturned in 2016 and last year Johnson agreed to a 10-year Alford plea deal with the last 3 years converted to parole.

One of the key journalists and activists who raised the media profile of the Johnson case was Steve Thrasher (@thrasherxy) (seen pictured with Johnson above the day he was released from prison on July 9, 2019).

A New York Times report on Johnson's release said:

In theory, H.I.V. exposure laws are meant to encourage H.I.V.-positive individuals to disclose their status before having sex, and to practice safer sex, with the ultimate goal of preventing the spread of the virus.
But there is no evidence that these laws have reduced risky behavior or encouraged disclosure, said Catherine Hanssens, the executive director of the Center for H.I.V. Law and Policy, which provided legal support for Mr. Johnson’s case.
In the eyes of the law, an H.I.V. diagnosis is conflated with malice, she added.
“These laws effectively treat an H.I.V. diagnosis itself as evidence that the person acted with bad intentions when sex or other types of physical contact are involved in a crime,” she said.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this case. Johnson will be moving to and living in Indiana with a friend and says he plans to continue his education and would like to share his story as part of advocacy for HIV prevention and treatment,

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Openly Gay MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Gregg Gonsalves

The 2018 MacArthur Fellows were announced yesterday and at least one of the "genius grant" winners is openly gay: Gregg Gonsalves, a well-known HIV/AIDS activist who was instrumental in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) in the 1990s. More recently he has become a global health advocate and received  a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University in 2017.

The official summary of Dr. Gonsalves' work from the MacArthur Foundation is:

Gregg Gonsalves is an epidemiologist and global health advocate integrating his experiences as a community activist with quantitative analysis and operations research to improve responses to global public health challenges. For nearly three decades, Gonsalves was an HIV/AIDS activist, working with domestic and international organizations such as AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. His efforts to connect the HIV/AIDS community with top-tier researchers and scientists were a critical catalyst to fundamental advances in scientific knowledge of the disease. These experiences deeply informed his later training in epidemiology and current efforts to optimize the effectiveness of health programs for epidemic diseases, particularly within poor and marginalized communities. 

Using a variety of quantitative approaches and operations research modeling, Gonsalves has determined how to identify hot spots for HIV testing in real time in order to maximize identification of undiagnosed HIV-positive persons; shed light on ways to minimize dropout of HIV-positive patients at key points in the care continuum; and assessed the epidemiological costs of emerging epidemics of HIV in the United States due to intravenous drug use and lack of needle exchange programs. In another line of research, Gonsalves examined the link between high rates of sexual violence against women living in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, and the lack of indoor sanitation—the remote location of facilities left women vulnerable to attacks. He developed a mathematical model that determined the optimal number of new facilities and demonstrated that sanitation investments by the city would significantly reduce instances of sexual violence as well as their associated costs. 

Gonsalves co-founded the Global Health Justice Partnership (GHJP), an interdisciplinary initiative between the schools of law and public health at Yale University, to further advance human rights and social justice perspectives in public health and legal research, practice, and teaching. Working in cooperation with local nongovernmental organizations, GHJP mobilizes research and evidence around pressing health issues and translates that evidence into action. For example, GHJP and colleagues in South Africa documented the failure of mining companies and the South African government to compensate families for tuberculosis (TB) and silicosis acquired in the mines, and they continue to advocate for policy reform based on their comparative research. Currently, GHJP is working with organizations in Brazil to investigate the role of the war on drugs and high incarceration rates on the community burden of TB as well as advocacy for wider availability of hepatitis C treatment in U.S. prisons. Through these initiatives, Gonsalves is training a new generation of researchers who, like himself, work across public health and human rights sectors, scholarly research, and activism to correct disparities in global public health.

Congratulations!

UPDATE: Michael Johnson a.k.a. "Tiger Mandingo" Has Jail Time Reduced From 30 Year to 6 (Plus Parole)

This blog post provides an update in the ongoing saga of how a 23-year-old Black gay man who was sentenced to 30-years for consensual sex with other men in Missouri because he is HIV-positive and did not inform his partners of that fact. The man is named Michael Johnson (although he described himself online as "Tiger Mandingo") and he became a poster child for the excesses of HIV criminalization. His trial was marred by blatant homophobia, prurient descriptions of Black male sexuality and blunt race-baiting by the prosecution. The good news is that eventually his original draconian 30-year sentence was overturned and last year he agreed to a 10-year sentence instead.

The latest update on the Johnson case is there is news that parole has been granted but that it is going to be delayed for 18 months, so in effect he will end up serving 6 years of his 10 year term since he has been in prison since 2013 and he would be released in 2019.

Steven Thrasher at Buzzfeed reports:

Last month, Johnson appeared before the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole, where his friend, Meredith Rowan, attended as his delegate in the hearing. The board did not immediately respond to an email or phone call for comment, but Rowan said Johnson called her from prison today to tell her that his parole had been granted — with a delay. 

“Michael was excited that it got approved,” Rowan told BuzzFeed News. “I have to look at it that I have a date, and it’s only 18 months away, and it’s still a lot sooner than a 30-year sentence,” Rowan said Johnson told her. If released as planned, Johnson will have served 60% of his 10-year sentence. The date is contingent upon Johnson not accruing any violations.
Johnson’s lawyers, Eric Selig and Jessica Hathaway, confirmed the terms of Johnson’s parole. ”We had some hopes, because of all the support Michael had received and a couple of other factors, that he would get out at an earlier date,” Selig said. 

Johnson will live with Rowan and her family in Indiana when he is released, Rowan said. He will be supervised by parole officers for the duration of his 10-year sentence, until 2023. 

Laws that single out HIV are widespread in the US. At least “67 laws explicitly focused on persons living with HIV had been enacted in 33 states” by 2011, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and researchers from the US Department of Justice. In Missouri, where Johnson was convicted, people living with HIV can face life in prison for exposing others to HIV if they have sex without first disclosing that they have the virus.

We at this blog have been following this case from the beginning because it seemed like such an egregious example of abuse in the criminal justice system intersecting with homophobia, race and HIV stigma.

2017 World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day. It is the 29th annual recognition of the impact on HIV and AIDS organized by the United Nations.  This year's theme is "Increasing Impact through Transparency, Accountability, and Partnerships."

UPDATE: Michael Johnson Accepts 10-Year Plea Deal In HIV Transmission Case

There is an update in the infamous Michael Johnson case: where a 23-year-old Black gay man was sentenced to 30 years in prison under Missouri's discriminatory HIV criminalization statute after a trial influenced by homophobia and racism. Happily, the 30-year sentence was overturned last year.
The news comes that Johnson has agreed to a plea deal where he gets a 10-year prison sentence (including the 4 years he has already served). He is entering an "Alford plea" which says that he agrees that the state has enough evidence to convict him of a crime.

The Center for HIV Law and Public Policy issued a press release on the Johnson case:

New York, NY, September 21, 2017 – Today, in conclusion to a prosecution short on fairness and riddled with questions about racism and homophobia, Michael Johnson entered a plea in the St. Charles County Circuit Court in Missouri. Earlier this year, a state appeals court vacated his original conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct that, according to the court, made Johnson’s first trial “fundamentally unfair.” 

However, because Missouri’s HIV criminal law hinges liability on whether or not the defendant can prove he disclosed his HIV status prior to sex – a virtual impossibility in most instances – Johnson decided to accept a plea deal that credits him with time served. Under Missouri’s law, one of the harshest in the country, Johnson could have faced up to 96 years in prison if found guilty. 

“It is disturbing that Michael is not yet a free man and was not exonerated after his years-long struggle for justice, but we respect and support his decision not to risk a life behind bars,” said Mayo Schreiber, Deputy Director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy (CHLP). “It likely is the end of his case, but our work to bring an end to HIV criminal laws like Missouri’s continues.” 

Johnson, who was 21-years-old at the beginning of this case, entered a no-contest plea to charges that he had sex with partners without first advising them of his HIV status. In exchange, he has accepted a sentence of 10 years in state prison, which will include time already served since his arrest nearly four years ago.  He previously had been sentenced to 30 years in prison before the appeals court threw out the original conviction. 

Prior to his arrest in 2013, Johnson was a promising young college student and star athlete. His prosecution has drawn condemnation from state and national organizations and individuals uniformly outraged by his conviction and opposed to these fundamentally unfair laws being used to prosecute people living with HIV and, disproportionately, like all other criminal laws in the United States, people of color.

In related news, this week the California state legislature passed SB 239, which modernizes the state's laws around HIV transmission so that HIV is treated like other communicable diseases.

Hat tip to TowleRoad

QUEER QUOTE: Draconian 30-Year Sentence Overturned In HIV Criminalization Case

The case of Michael Johnson has been a cause celebre for years, an emblematic of a toxic stew of race, (homo)sexuality, homophobia, AIDSphobia and criminal justice that produces (and is produced by) HIV criminalization statutes. Johnson is a Black gay man who at age 23 was sentenced to 30 years in a Missouri court in summer 2015 because the former college wrestler did not disclose to his male partners that he  knew he was HIV-positive before they engaged in unprotected sexual activity (some of which was recorded on cellphones). This week comes the news that an appellate court has overturned that draconian sentence (conviction for 2nd degree murder would have received less jail time) and ordered a new trial.

The Washington Post reports:

During the trial, Johnson remained adamant that he informed his partners of the positive HIV test. He pleaded not guilty. The prosecution, however, impeached his testimony using three clips of cellphone conversations, recorded while Johnson was jailed. In one snippet of phone conversation, Johnson admitted he was just “pretty sure” he had informed his partners he was HIV positive. 

After slightly more than two hours of deliberation, a jury declared Johnson guilty of three crimes, all felonies under Missouri law: one count of recklessly infecting a sexual partner with HIV, one count of recklessly exposing a partner to HIV and three counts of attempting to recklessly infect a partner with HIV. In July 2015, Judge Jon A. Cunningham of the Circuit Court for St. Charles County sentenced Johnson to 30 years in prison. 

[...] 

Presiding Missouri Court of Appeals’ Eastern District Judge James M. Dowd wrote Tuesday that Johnson’s trial was rendered “fundamentally unfair” by the prosecutors; they tarried too long handing over the cellphone calls recorded while Johnson was in the county jail. “The State’s blatant discovery violation here is inexcusable,” the judges concluded.

Johnson's lawyer Lawrence Lustberg, the ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal celebrated this week's result. Lustberg's comment is today's Queer Quote:

"Statutes like the one used to prosecute Mr. Johnson are inherently problematic, as they promote stigma and animus towards people living with HIV in violation of their legal and constitutional rights."

The ACLU notes that the new trial is being ordered due to prosecutorial misconduct and not the underlying constitutional frailty of the criminal statute Johnson was charged and sentenced under.
MadProfessah will continue to follow this case closely and urge readers to contribute to organizations like Lambda Legal, ACLU and the Center for HIV Law and Policy.

Hat/tip to Washington Blade and Washington Post.

REPORT: Racial Disparities Exist In HIV Criminalization

This will not be a surprise to anyone who has been following the story of HIV criminalization in the United States over the last few years. The Black AIDS Institute has issued a report on a new academic finding that exposes the racial disparities that exist in HIV criminalization.

Two studies—one commissioned by the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that conducts independent research on sexual-orientation and gender-identity law and public policy, and the other presented at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July 2016—link the criminalization of HIV to higher rates of incarceration for PLWHA of color, and community activists confirm it.

[...]

Researchers found that while White men made up 40 percent of the people diagnosed with HIV in California, only 16 percent of them had had contact with the criminal-justice system related to their HIV status. Black men made up 16 percent of PLWHA but 19 percent of those who had contact with the criminal-justice system. They were also more likely than White men to come into contact with the system repeatedly based on their HIV status: 25 percent vs. 10 percent. Overall, White men were more likely to be released and not charged. Black women made up only 4 percent of the population of PLWHA, yet an astounding 21 percent of them had come into contact with the criminal-justice system. Researchers say that more work needs to be done to identify what is driving the racial and gender disparities. 

In July, Trevor Hoppe, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Albany, presented his paper "HIV: Does Race Impact Sentencing Under Criminal HIV Exposure and Disclosure Laws in the United States?" at AIDS 2016. Hoppe looked at five states—Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee—and found that Black men were given an average sentence of 110 months after being convicted on an HIV-specific criminal law, while White men averaged 74 months for violating the same statute. He found the greatest racial disparity in Arkansas, where Black men's sentences were double those of white men—279 vs. 140 months. "In Arkansas, Black men were sentenced to a dozen more years," says Hoppe.

There are too many examples of public policy not keeping up with the advancement of scientific knowledge about HIV transmission and, unsurprisingly, it is people of color who appear to be disproportionately impacted by this. Just ask Michael Johnson!

New Study Shows Zero Transmission Between Serodiscordant Couples With One Undetectable Partner

Great news! A recently published very large research study of sexual activity (58,000 examples of condomless penetrative sex) between serodiscordant couples (both heterosexual and homosexual, where one couple is HIV-negative and the other is HIV-positive) has demonstrated that undetectable people have a near-zero probability of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners.

Over the course of two years, the study tracked 888 serodiscordant couples — that is, couples in which one partner is HIV-positive and one is HIV-negative. This included 548 different-sex couples and 340 same-sex male couples. The HIV-positive partners maintained undetectable viral levels with antiretroviral therapy (ART), but the HIV-negative partners did not use PrEP. 

There were 11 cases in the study in which partners contracted HIV, but they didn’t get it from their partners. Researchers tested the virus in each case and confirmed that what they had contracted was not phylogenetically linked to their partners’ virus. In other words, it was conclusively proven that they only contracted HIV because they had sex outside the relationship. 

Simon Collins, a member of the PARTNER study steering committee, described the results as “simple to understand.” In a statement, he explained, “This provides the strongest estimate of actual risk of HIV transmission when an HIV positive person has undetectable viral load — and that risk is effectively zero.”

The implications of this result for public policy around HIV stigmatization in the United States are profound. There are numerous HIV-positive Americans who are serving draconian criminal sentences for having sex with other people due to misguided laws (combined with overzealous prosecutions and bigoted juries). Oftentimes, it is people of color who are disproportionately impacted, as exemplified by one of the most (in)famous of these cases, the so-called "Tiger Mandingo" case where a 23-year-old African-American man named Michael Johnson was sentenced to 30 years in jail after being convicted of multiple felonies in Missouri.

Hopefully, this new scientific evidence from the PARTNER study can be used to help organizations like the SERO Project support the repeal of some of these pernicious laws around the country.

FDA Reduces Lifetime Ban On MSM Blood Donations To 1 Year

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal agency responsible for protecting the United States blood supply has finally issued regulations on changing the discriminatory (and patently offensive) policy on preventing any man who has said sex with another man (MSM) from donating blood. The decades-old policy of a lifetime ban was replaced with a "1-year deferral" for men who have had (any kind of) sex with another man.

From the FDA press release issued today:

As part of today’s finalized blood donor deferral guidance, the FDA is changing its recommendation that  men who have sex with men (MSM) be indefinitely deferred – a policy that has been in place for approximately 30 years – to 12 months since the last sexual contact with another man. These updated recommendations better align the deferral period for MSM with the deferral period for other men and women at increased risk for HIV infection – such as those who had a recent blood transfusion or those who have been accidentally exposed to the blood of another individual. The FDA examined a variety of recent studies, epidemiologic data, and shared experiences from other countries that have made recent MSM deferral policy changes. 

“In reviewing our policies to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission through blood products, we rigorously examined several alternative options, including individual risk assessment,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “Ultimately, the 12-month deferral window is supported by the best available scientific evidence, at this point in time, relevant to the U.S. population. We will continue to actively conduct research in this area and further revise our policies as new data emerge.” 

Several countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, currently have 12-month deferrals for MSM. During the change in Australia from an indefinite blood donor deferral policy for MSM to a 12-month deferral, well-conducted studies evaluating over 8 million units of donated blood were performed using a national blood surveillance system. These published studies document no change in risk to the blood supply with use of the 12-month deferral. Similar data are not available for shorter deferral intervals.

The website fivethirtyeight.com and Williams Institute conducted an analysis on the numerous proposed changes to the lifetime blood ban on MSM donations and these are summarized:

There should be an estimated 2 million more people eligible to donate blood, with 190, 000 of them likely to do so.

However, as the New Civil Rights Movement blog points out, the revised policy still continues the stigma of homosexuality, since a married gay couple who only have sex with each other (even with condoms!) is technically barred from giving blood for a year while a straight guy could be having sex every day for a year with sex workers or other high-risk individuals and the straight person is not bared from donating blood under this policy. This communicates the message that homosexuality is inherently more "dangerous" than heterosexuality.

I applaud the progress from the ridiculously stigmatizing lifetime ban on men who have sex with men but would urge the FDA to consider a policy that is neutral based on the gender of the person the potential blood donor has sex with.

WORLD AIDS DAY 2015 Is Today

Today is World AIDS Day. Interestingly, the term "AIDS" is increasingly becoming disfavored among clinicians and doctors who work in this are, who are gravitating towards the term "HIV Stage 3."

Check out this helpful fact sheet:

1. Acute HIV Infection
   Acute HIV infection is the earliest stage of HIV. Acute HIV infection generally develops within 2 to 4 weeks 
2. after a person is infected with HIV. During acute HIV infection, many people have flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache, and rash. In this acute stage of infection, HIV multiplies rapidly and spreads throughout the body. The virus attacks and destroys the infection-fighting CD4 cells of the immune system. HIV can be transmitted during any stage of infection, but the risk is greatest during acute HIV infection.


3. Chronic HIV Infection
   The second stage of HIV infection is chronic HIV infection (also called asymptomatic HIV infection or clinical latency). During this stage of the disease, HIV continues to multiply in the body but at very low levels. People with chronic HIV infection may not have any HIV-related symptoms, but they can still spread HIV to others. Without treatment with HIV medicines, chronic HIV infection usually advances to AIDS in 10 to 12 years.


4. AIDS 
   AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection. Because HIV has destroyed the immune system, the body can’t fight off opportunistic infections and cancer. (Examples of opportunistic infections include pneumonia and tuberculosis.) AIDS is diagnosed when a person with HIV has a CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm3 and/or one or more opportunistic infections. Without treatment, people with AIDS typically survive about 3 years.

I wonder how Charlie Sheen is marking todays date (in light of recent revelations)?

QUEER QUOTE: CHLP Responds To Black Gay Man's 30-Year Jail Sentence

I previously blogged about the case of the HIV+, Black, gay college wrestling champion named  Michael Johnson who was arrested, tried and convicted using Missouri's draconian HIV criminalization statute for sexual activity he engaged in with consenting adults. Yesterday I blogged this week that Johnson has now been sentenced to multiple, concurrent 30-year terms. Michael Johnson is 23-years-old and apparently had diagnosed learning disabilities while he was in college.

The Center for HIV Law and Public Policy has released a statement condemning Missouri's prosecution (and persecution) of Johnson which is today's Queer Quote:

“The criminal statute that Michael Johnson was convicted of violating was originally passed in 1988, at a time when HIV was considered a ‘death sentence.’  Today, with proper treatment, HIV is a chronic, manageable disease and those with HIV can expect to live a full, healthy life. Yet violation of the Missouri law is a class A felony, with a sentencing range of 10-30 years or life imprisonment. Other class A felonies include murder or child abandonment resulting in death.  Punishing Michael Johnson as if he is a murderer because state officials have failed to address a severely outdated, irrational criminal law is not only fundamentally unfair, it is barbaric.”

Here at MadProfessah.com we will be following this case closely!