MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tennessee Senator Brent Taylor has asked the state to appoint a special prosecutor after Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said his office will no longer prosecute aggravated prostitution.
Sen. Taylor sent a letter to the Tennessee Attorney General asking if the Shelby County DA’s agreement with the United States Department of Justice Office to stop enforcing the state law is even legal.
Tennessee’s aggravated rape statute states a “person commits aggravated prostitution when knowing that such person is infected with HIV, the person engages in sexual activity at a business or is an inmate in a house of prosecution, or loiters in a public place to be hired to engage in sexual activity.”
In October, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit challenging the statute, saying it violated the Americans With Disabilities Act because it targeted people living with HIV and forced them to register as “violent sex offenders.”
Mulroy said the DOJ said the aggravated prostitution state statute violated federal law, and they agreed to stop using it. However, he said, the action does not mean they will stop prosecuting prostitution.
“The normal prostitution statute remains at our disposal. As does the separate statute making it a Class C Felony to knowingly expose another person to HIV, including by sexual contact,” Mulroy said. “We have agreed to stop setting aside HIV-positive prostitution for harsher treatment, even if that person is fully medicated, has a suppressed viral load, and is thus at no risk of infecting anyone. To do otherwise would entail fighting DOJ in federal court for the right to discriminate when this office had not initiated such a case in recent years, and we have other means to go after prostitution.”
Sen. Taylor said this marks the second time DA Mulroy has been a party to an action that resulted in different enforcement of laws in Shelby County compared to the rest of the state and said this comes as the Shelby County Health Department reports an alarming increase in STDs and HIV in Shelby County.
“According to the Shelby County Health Department, since 2018, HIV rates increased 40 percent among those 15-to-19 years old and increased 36 percent among the entire population. We have an HIV problem, and District Attorney Steve Mulroy refuses to enforce the law that will help address the issue,” Sen. Taylor said.
Mulroy said the statute specifically discriminates against the LGBTQ community, and he did not want to take precious time and resources away from fighting violent crime in order to “pick a fight with the DOJ.”
“I’m not gonna fight with the right to discriminate against the LGBTQ community or the HIV community,” Mulroy said.
Taylor said despite the General Assembly and the public demanding an increase in prosecutions, Mulroy had taken it upon himself to ‘willfully ignore an entire category of crimes.’