The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday launched a lawsuit against Tennessee over the enforcement of a 1991 law that increases prostitution penalties for individuals who knowingly engage in the illegal practice while testing positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
According to a press release by the DOJ, Tennessee’s law prohibiting aggravated prostitution violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by enforcing legislation “against people living with” HIV, citing their December 2023 letter that warned of forthcoming litigation unless Tennessee stopped enforcing its law.
Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution statute, which became law in 1991, creates the Class C felony crime of aggravated prostitution, which is committed “when, knowing that such a person is infected with HIV, the person engages in sexual activity as a business or is an inmate in a house of prostitution or loiters in a public place of being hired to engage in sexual activity.”
Class C felonies are punishable in Tennessee by three to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Also, the law additionally specifies that the HIV virus does not need to be spread in order for a crime to occur.
Because aggravated prostitution is a sex crime, those convicted of the offense must also provide their information for the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry upon release from prison.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke (pictured above) of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division argued Tennessee is treating “people differently based on HIV status alone” and thus discriminates “against people living with HIV.”
“People living with HIV should not be subjected to a different system of justice based on outdated science and misguided assumptions,” Clarke said in a statement. “This lawsuit reflects the Justice Department’s commitment to ensuring that people living with HIV are not targeted because of their disability.”
In the letter sent by the DOJ in December 2023, the federal government claimed to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy that Tennessee, the TBI, and Shelby County are engaged in discriminatory acts by enforcing the law, and demanded a series of actions including “written status reports” that would be necessary to prevent litigation.
The federal litigation comes in addition to a civil lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed last October, which similarly argues the law is discriminatory because it “elevates engaging in sex work from a misdeamenor to a felony based on someone’s HIV status – a protected disability.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
