Ineffective Assistance Found In Criminal Transmission Of HIV Case

The Iowa Supreme Court has held that a defendant who pleaded guilty to criminal transmission of the HIV virus received ineffective assistance of counsel because there was an insufficient factual basis to support the plea.

…we find the guilty plea record did not contain a factual basis to support the plea. We also find the court in this case cannot use the rule of judicial notice to establish the factual basis in the guilty plea record. Based on the state of medicine both now and at the time of the plea in 2009, we are unable to take judicial notice that an infected individual can transmit HIV, regardless of an infected individual’s viral load, when that individual engages in protected anal or unprotected oral sex with an uninfected person. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the court of appeals and reverse the judgment of the district court. We also remand the case with directions.

Justice Zager dissented and would apply the strong presumption in favor of effective assistance

There is no way to reconcile the majority’s conclusion. The strong presumption in favor of an attorney’s effective assistance of counsel and the need to suppress hindsight’s temptation in favor of an analysis that takes account of the law and the facts as they were at the time of the conduct under review are the hallmark of ineffective-assistance-of-counsel analysis. In 2008, when counsel examined the record to determine whether the facts met the elements of the criminal-transmission statute, he could have reasonably concluded the guilty plea was factually supported according to the law as it was then. All the necessary facts are in the record, notwithstanding the record’s limitations…

In the months leading up to the criminal offense, and in the subsequent months prior to Rhoades’s decision to plead guilty, we cannot forget it is Rhoades who had all of the relevant facts. Rhoades had all of the medical information regarding his HIV status and his viral load. Rhoades knew whether he should engage in intimate contact, whether this intimate contact needed to be protected or unprotected, the reasons he believed the intimate contact did or did not need to be protected, and whether there was a possibility that the HIV could be transmitted. Nevertheless, Rhoades listed his HIV status on his online dating profile as negative and told A.P. he was “clean” before the two engaged in the intimate contact. After these initial denials, Rhoades finally admitted to A.P. two weeks later in a recorded phone call that he was HIV positive.

 And concludes

Today’s decision must leave counsel with the distinct feeling of having a rug yanked out from under him.

(Mike Frisch)