NEW YORK -- A judge Tuesday acquitted eight AIDS activists in connection with an illegal hypodermic needle exchange program, ruling their effort was justified given the threat posed to drug addicts by the deadly disease.
Criminal Judge Laura Drager described city and state officials as unresponsive to the AIDS crisis with her ruling that the underground program was 'necessary as an emergency measure to avert an imminent public injury.'
She acquitted eight AIDS activists, who each could have been jailed for up to six months if found guilty of criminal possession of a hypodermic instrument.
The activists, members of the New York's AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and the Boston-based National AIDS Brigade, cheered and threw their arms around each other as Drager issued her 29-page decision from the bench.
They were arrested on March 6, 1990, while preparing to collect used needles and distribute clean ones with bleach kits for cleaning them, condoms and AIDS prevention information in a drug-infested Lower East Side neighborhood.
Drager quoted expert testimony from the six-day trial in April, including statements from former city Health Commmissioner Stephen Joseph, that drugs have brought AIDS to the city's poorest communities and to increasing numbers of women and their offspring.
The sharing of scarce hypodermic needles to inject drugs has infected about half of the city's estimated 200,000 addicts with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, via minute amounts of blood carried in used needles between addicts.
'The state legislature has yet to consider whether to revise the hypodermic possession statute in the wake of the epidemic,' the judge observed.
She described city officials as giving 'mixed signals' about such programs, noting that the city began and ended an experimental exchange program 'without, apparently, any clear reason being given. Police action against the defendants has, at best, been sporadic.'
Drager dismissed the government's argument that the group's actions were merely a protest demonstration and accepted defense arguments of justification by medical necessity.
'This court is satisfied that the nature of the crisis facing this City, coupled with the medical evidence offered, warranted defendants' action.'
'This court is also satisifed that the harm the defendants sought to avoid was greater than the harm in violating the statute,' she continued, adding, 'The distinction, in broadest terms, during this age of the AIDS crisis is death by using dirty needles verusus drug addiction by using clean needles. The defendants' actions sought to avoid the greater harm.'
Dinkins' press office refused to comment and referred questions to city Corporation Counsel Victor Kovner, who emphasized that the ruling set no precedent and applied only to the single incident.
'While Judge Drager appears to be questioning the policy, I don't think she is challenging the enforceability of the law,' Kovner said.
'The bar against needle distribution remains and presumably will be enforced by law enforcement officials and that does reflect the mayor's policy,' he said, adding that his office had no plans to recommend changes in the law.
Asked about ACT UP's continued needle exchange efforts, he referred questions to the Police Department but noted that other crimes may have a higher priority.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Mortgenthau was not available to comment on the ruling.
A similar trial of AIDS activists in Redwood City, Calif., last month ended in a hung jury, whose foreman later joined the illegal needle exchange project.
'It was the right decision,' said ACT UP lawyer Jill Harris. 'In New York City, people realize that the city is falling down in its responsibility to save lives.'
Acquitted were Gregg Bordowitz, 26, Cynthia Cochran, 67, Richard Elovich, 27, Debra Levine, 30, Kathryn Otter, 24, Monica Pearl, 26, and Dan Williams, 34, all of Manhattan, and Jon Stuen Parker, 26, of Boston.
