Senate Committee Passes AIDS Crime Bill

A bill by state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) to criminalize the spread of AIDS has won approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee but could meet strong opposition in the Assembly, political observers said Wednesday.

Davis and five fellow committee members voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the bill, which proposes a life prison sentence for anyone convicted of intentionally spreading AIDS to another person through sex or use of a hypodermic needle.

The original version also proposed a state prison sentence of three to nine years for anyone convicted of exposing another person without specific intent to infect them. The committee reduced that sentence to two to four years.

“I have fairly high hopes for it in both Appropriations and on the Senate floor,” said Charles Fennessey, Davis’ legal consultant.

But if the bill is passed in the Senate, it must enter the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, which has often rejected similar legislation, Fennessey said.

Davis proposed the bill after the Ventura County grand jury indicted a 45-year-old Santa Barbara man on Jan. 10 for allegedly spreading the AIDS virus.

David Scott Crother allegedly infected a woman and the child she gave birth to with the virus.