Are You Positive?

by Stephen Davis

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After the emotionally draining experience of Saturday night, Sarah forced herself not to think about the trial, or HIV or AIDS, for the next two days. Instead, she and Gwen and Kate talked about lots of other things, went to a couple movies, and took a picnic and hiked through Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield National Park. Kennesaw is the tallest mountain in a short string of peaks close to Kate’s house and encompasses much of the area involved in a series of battles during the Civil War.

  Sarah had not realized how much time she had spent indoors or in front of her computer during the last six months, immersed in the headiness of two different trials. It was so healing and so refreshing to spend time outside, in nature, out of her head and into her body; and she was so thankful for the beautiful weather this time of year that made it all possible.

  But, now, here she is again, Tuesday morning, sitting in court, waiting for the trial to start. It seems to her that the air has cleared inside the courtroom as well, after the tensions of the past week. Everyone, including Mr. Wilson, looks rested and less on edge. The jury especially appears to have been able to assimilate the vast amounts of scientific evidence offered so far, and is now capable of handling more.

  Mr. Campbell is announcing his next witness. “I call Dr. Nathaniel Logan.”

  As Dr. Logan makes his way to the stand, Sarah sits up and watches carefully. Then as she listens to him spell his name and give his address, she is certain of it. He’s gay; and she suddenly realizes that he is the first gay man she has seen at this trial, either as a witness or in the gallery. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since we’re in the south, she thinks. But it’s a strong reminder to Sarah that HIV and AIDS is definitely not limited to the gay communities any more.

  Campbell’s ready. “Dr. Logan, what were you doing in 1996, ’97?”

  “I was a graduate student at the University of California, San Francisco.”

  “What were you studying?”

  “Overall? Microbiology and pathology.”

  “And specifically?”

  “My Masters thesis was on the transmission of infectious organisms.”

  “And you later received your Ph.D.?”

  “Yes.”

  Logan’s speech affectation is fairly pronounced. His delivery is somewhat slow and controlled, and it felt like he might not ever finish a sentence, even a short one, once he started. Campbell is being very patient.

  “Were you involved in a special study during your graduate work?”

  “Yes. For almost two years I did work on a study run by Dr. Nancy Padian and some of her colleagues at the University concerning the transmission of HIV through heterosexual intercourse.”

  “What got you interested in this topic?”

  It also looks like Logan is enjoying his moment in the spotlight and wants to take every advantage of it. “Well, it was a requirement of my graduate school that I be involved in some kind of study. I’ve often wondered whether that was to make sure the heads of the departments had plenty of free labor to do all their grunt work for them, after which they could write their papers and take all the credit.”

  Ahh. He’s got an ax to grind and wants someone to listen, Sarah thinks. That might explain the attitude.

  Campbell doesn’t seem to care. He presses on. “But did you have a personal interest as well?”

  “Yes, I did. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m gay, Mr. Campbell, and I knew it at a very young age.”

  Logan seems to have stopped, so Campbell asks, “But this was a study of heterosexuals….”

  Logan interrupts, “You didn’t let me finish, Mr. Campbell. I was saying, I knew I was gay at a very young age. I can remember marching in the streets in gay parades and protests when AIDS had just come on the scene, when I was about ten or eleven years old. Those are impressionable years, Mr. Campbell, and everyone was talking about how AIDS could not stay just a gay disease or there would be no money to help find a cure. We had to make sure the world knew that HIV was going to affect the heterosexual population as well.”

  “Is that why you went into microbiology?”

  “That was a big part of my motivation, yes. It was also why I was excited to be part of the Padian study, which I knew was going to be the definitive study about the transmission of HIV through heterosexual intercourse. It was, and still is, the largest and longest study of its kind on this question.”

  “It sounds almost as if you had a personal agenda in proving that.” Apparently Campbell knew that Logan’s testimony would have this edge to it, and he wants to encourage it for some reason.

  “I admit it. I did.”

  “Were you successful? Did the Padian study prove that HIV is transmitted through heterosexual contact?”

  “No, it didn’t; and I was very disappointed at the time.”

  “What happened? What went wrong?”

  Logan is definitely enjoying this, as if getting revenge for the Padian failures. “Well, it seems to have started off as a very well-planned study. For the first four years, before I got involved, the study focused on paperwork, basically.”

  “What do you mean by paperwork?”

  “I mean that everything was based on HIV infection that had already happened in the past. Wait a minute,” and turns to the judge. “Can I read you a line?...”

  When the judge nods his permission, Logan takes out some papers he had brought with him to the witness chair, flips a couple pages, runs his finger down the page and stops. “‘The fundamental design was to compare couples where transmission had occurred with those who remained discordant for HIV infection.’”

  “And that means?”

  “That means that they were doing case histories and interviews on heterosexual couples who had already both become HIV-Positive at some point in the past and comparing them to couples where one of the partners had remained HIV-Negative. Somewhere in the paper they make a very clear statement that for all these couples, transmission occurred prior to entry into the study.” Again Logan searches the pages for what he wants. “Yes, there it is, and I said it exactly as it’s written. So they were basically trying to go back and reconstruct how that transmission had occurred.”

  “But how could they prove that the transmission was the result of intercourse and not some other activity?”

  “They couldn’t. They tried hard to eliminate other factors, but it’s just not possible under those uncontrolled circumstances. Even with the best of case histories, there are some things you simply can’t account for or prove. For example, the early couples included bisexual men.”

  Campbell looks up from the lectern to insure that Logan doesn’t continue down that road. “But that’s not what we’re interested in for this trial, so why don’t we stick with the strictly heterosexual couples.”

  Logan puts the papers down on the railing of the witness box. “No problem. But that’s the reason that in 1990 they started doing what is called the ‘prospective phase,’ which simply means actual, very controlled clinical studies of what’s happening in real life in present time, and not on paper in the past.”

  “And the point of the prospective phase was?...”

  “Dr. Padian wanted to count, as closely as possible, how many times an HIV-Positive could have sex with an HIV-Negative partner before that Negative partner became HIV-Positive. That was the main stated purpose of the study. It says it right here on the first page…” and Logan picks up the papers again, “’To examine rates and risk factors for heterosexual transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus.’ I hoped, of course – and I think I can say that everyone expected – that it would turn out to be a lot more frequently than we thought at the time, or that other studies had shown.”

  “Was it?”

  “No.” Again, the sound of disappointment in Logan’s voice.

  Campbell appears pleased with Logan’s testimony so far. But he also seems ready to get to the important part. “Alright. Why don’t I let you explain how t
his prospective phase was being conducted.”

  “Thank you,” Logan says, as if he had been waiting for this chance for years. “Again, before I got there, various heterosexual couples had been carefully chosen. One partner – either the male or the female, it didn’t matter – had been diagnosed HIV-Positive. The other partner was HIV-Negative. These are called ‘discordant couples.’ Another requirement was that they had to have been monogamous – not had sex with anyone other than their partner – for at least a year before joining the study. They also could not be IV drug users.”

  “Why was that?” Campbell asks, looking at the jury and assessing their grasp of Logan’s testimony.

  “To make sure that the HIV-Negative partner would not all of sudden show up Positive because they got infected by someone else in the past, or by blood transmission from a dirty needle. That would skew the study results, of course.”

  “But why a year? I thought that it was agreed that HIV antibodies would show up within six months of infection, at the longest.”

  Logan doesn’t look like he appreciates Campbell questioning his statements. “True. But Dr. Padian went overboard and decided on a year, just to be totally safe.”

  Campbell raises his hands as if surrendering to Logan’s response. “Okay. So what did you do with these discordant couples?”

  “We interviewed them and tested them on a regular basis, and we educated them about safe sex along the way.”

  “What were you looking for, specifically?”

  “We wanted to know how many times they were having sex, and how they were having sex; and we kept waiting and watching for the HIV-Negative partner to seroconvert – to become HIV-Positive.”

  “What was your job?”

  “I was one of those who did the interviewing, collecting the data.”

  Campbell creates a pause at this point. Sarah had realized quite early in the trial that he had a good feel for when the witness needed to stop talking and let the jury digest what they had just heard. In this case, Campbell obviously wanted them to appreciate the fact that this witness was there when it all happened, in the middle of the mix.

  When he feels enough time has passed, Campbell continues. “How long did all this go on, Dr. Logan?”

  “Some of the couples stayed with the study as long as six years. Others came and went, some for a year or two, some longer.”

  “Were you part of this when the study came to an end?”

  “I was involved for the last of the interviews, yes, and part of the discussions that would eventually lead to writing the final paper for publication. But I left before the actual paper was written.”

  Campbell walks back to his table and sits on the edge of it. “Why?”

  “Two reasons. First, I was at the end of my Masters program; and secondly because I didn’t like the direction the discussions were going to publish the results of the study.”

  “What do you mean? What bothered you?”

  “It more than bothered me, Mr. Campbell.” Logan acts like he has been totally misjudged. “I was really upset.”

  “Please tell the court why.”

  “Because the actual results of the study were being buried in what we now call ‘spin,’ and I didn’t think that was appropriate for what was supposed to be a science paper. It lacked integrity; and if there’s anything I pride myself on, it’s my integrity.”

  Campbell is clearly starting to tire of Logan’s attitude and wants to calm it down and get back to the facts. “Okay, Dr. Logan. I understand. Perhaps you should tell us what the actual results of the study were.”

  “As I said, we were counting the number of times these heterosexual discordant couples were having sex, expecting the HIV-Negative partner to become HIV-Positive. But it never happened.”

  Campbell puts on one of his ‘I’m surprised and shocked’ looks. “I’m sorry; did you say ‘it never happened’?”

  “That’s right. Not one of the 175 discordant couples we studied for as long as six years ever seroconverted – not one of the HIV-Negative partners ever became HIV-Positive.”

  Campbell repeats his feigned surprise. “None?”

  “Not a one, Mr. Campbell.”

  “That must have been difficult for you to take.”

  “It shook me to the core, Mr. Campbell. For fifteen years I had believed what I was told – that HIV was transmitted through heterosexual intercourse and was a threat to everyone, not just gay men. Now I’m faced with the actual results of the largest and longest and most controlled study if its kind that says it isn’t true. You can imagine what that did to me. I literally felt betrayed. For a long time I was very angry at my fellow gays for perpetrating this myth and stopped going to gay meetings or parades.”

  Underneath Logan’s emotions lay a very important point that Campbell hopes the jury heard. But he decides not to try to make him say it again.

  “Dr. Logan, you also said you didn’t like the discussions that went on about writing the paper….”

  “Well, imagine the position Dr. Padian and her colleagues were in. They had spent ten years of their lives on this study – ten long years and a lot of work, even though it was we graduate students who were doing most if it. And a lot of people knew this study was going on and were looking forward to the results. Some were even counting on the results to further bolster their case for heterosexual transmission. Dr. Padian simply couldn’t throw it all away and not publish the paper. But she also knew that she couldn’t publish a paper focusing on the fact that she found no incidence of seroconversion. So a lot of the discussion was how to make the paper sound like there was.”

  Campbell walks to the witness stand and picks up the papers Logan had brought. “Are you saying that they were talking about intentionally deceiving everyone about the results of this study?”

  Logan grabs the papers back out of Campbell’s hand, as if he shouldn’t have touched them without permission. “Essentially, yes, although none of them would agree to that, I’m sure. But it sounded like that to me, and I didn’t want any part of it. So I was glad that I could end my involvement in the study at that point.”

  As Campbell walks back to the lectern, he asks, “Dr. Logan, can you give us an example of what you consider ‘deceiving’?”

  “Well, the published paper turned out to be more than 4000 words long, with some graphs and charts. But out of the entire paper, there is only one sentence, nine words, that says ‘we observed no seroconversions after entry into the study.’ There are two other, also very brief references to the results, such as: ‘While lack of transmission in our prospective study,’ and ‘the absence of seroincident infection over the course of the study.’ So they clearly minimized the very important results of their prospective phase.”

  “And what do the other 3970 words say?”

  “They spend a lot of time talking about how the study was performed, the materials and methods, the procedures and measures, and how the data analysis was done.”

  “But that’s not unusual for published studies of this kind.”

  Logan looks offended again that Campbell would challenge him. “No, it isn’t. But then they focused almost entirely on the paperwork parts of the study, on the couples who had seroconverted before the study under uncontrolled circumstances, like the bisexual men you don’t want me to talk about.” Logan seems to have enjoyed jabbing back at Campbell. “And they made the report sound like this was the most important part of the study. They even based their conclusions on this part, rather than on the prospective phase, and came up with estimates of the rate of transmission between heterosexual couples that completely ignored the fact that none of the discordant couples in the prospective phase actually seroconverted.”

  He really is doing a good job, despite the attitude, Campbell realizes. “Can you give us an example of what you’re talking about, Dr. Logan?”

  Logan picks up the study again from the railing. “Again, let me read from the published paper itself. ‘The pra
ctice of anal sex and condom use have remained strong predictors of transmission since the beginning of the study, and we continue to observe that male-to-female transmission is approximately 7-9 times more efficient than female-to-male transmission.”

  “But how can they say that when none of the discordant couples they followed for as long as six years ever seroconverted?”

  “That’s my point, Mr. Campbell. This statement totally ignores the results of the prospective phase of the study. It also ignores the fact that almost 38% of the couples in the prospective phase had been having anal sex before joining the study, and more than eight percent were still having it at the end of the study – despite the valiant efforts of Dr. Padian and her crew, including me, who were trying to get them to stop, by the way. Ironic, huh? Anyway, this meant that they should have been even more prone to HIV transmission if anal sex was the ‘strong predictor’ that Dr. Padian claimed it was.”

  A quick check of the jury let Campbell know that was enough about anal sex. “And what about the condom use?”

  “Prior to entering the study, these couples in the prospective phase were only using condoms about a third of the time. At the end of the study, more than a quarter of them were still not using condoms consistently – again, despite all the propaganda they were getting in our education classes.”

  “So you’re telling this court that after six years of following these discordant couples, 25% of whom were still having unprotected sex, and some still having anal sex, that not one of the HIV-Negative partners was infected with HIV and became HIV-Positive.”

  “That’s exactly what happened, yes.”

  “But I assume they were still having sex?”

  “Oh, yes. A very small number decided on abstinence as a result of our safe sex education, but the vast majority were having sex, and lots of it.”

  “And you’re also saying that the paper that was published by Dr. Padian and her colleagues basically buried that information and intentionally emphasized results they had obtained simply by studying the case histories of other discordant couples, in which case there was no way to prove how the second partner became HIV-Positive.”

  “Correct.”

  Campbell wants another pause, so he looks at his yellow pad and turns over a page as if looking for his next question. “But you said that Dr. Padian still arrived at some estimates about how frequently an HIV-Positive person could infect someone who was HIV-Negative.”

  “Yes, she did. Of course, she had to totally ignore the fact than none of her discordant couples in the prospective phase seroconverted, even after having sex thousands of times. For them, of course, the rate of transmission would be ‘zero.’ But she based all her estimates on the other couples she studied on paper – those she did not actually observe or know for a fact how they became HIV-Positive.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what are those estimates?”

  “She said that the chances for transmission of HIV to occur when the man is HIV-Positive and the woman is HIV-Negative are approximately 1 in 1000, and the chances for transmission from an HIV-Positive female to an HIV-Positive male are approximately 1 in 8000.”

  Campbell jotted down the numbers as Logan was answering. “Dr. Logan, let’s talk about those numbers for a minute, and let’s just talk about the rate of transmission from the man to the woman, which is what we’re dealing with in this case. This obviously does not mean that a woman can have sex with an HIV-Positive man 999 times before she would be infected with HIV on the 1000th time.”

  Logan actually lets out a little chuckle, breaking his intensity. “No, it doesn’t. What it means is that Dr. Padian claims the odds are about a thousand to one that the transmission of HIV would occur between an HIV-Positive man and an HIV-Negative woman in a single act of sex. If you think about the odds of a horse winning at a race track, even the biggest long shot is usually only one-hundred to one. In other words, there are really good odds that HIV transmission won’t occur very frequently.”

  Campbell wants to make sure the jury doesn’t get lost in the numbers and instead remembers the most critical results of the study. “But, again, that didn’t apply to the discordant couples studied in the prospective phase.”

  “No. As I said, their results said that the chances of an HIV-Positive man infecting an HIV-Negative woman through heterosexual intercourse were zero.”

  Let’s get down to brass tacks. “So in terms of the defendant and Beth Ann Brooks… even if they had sex every day for the three months or so that they were dating – which we know for a fact they didn’t – that would still only be a hundred times. Even if you believe Dr. Padian’s unsubstantiated calculations, what are the chances that Miss Brooks could have gotten infected with HIV?”

  “Very small, Mr. Campbell. Even Dr. Padian admits in her own paper…” which he picks up again and finds what he’s looking for, “…and I quote: ‘We estimate that infectivity for male-to-female transmission is low.’”

  This time Campbell actually reads his notes, wondering whether he forgot something. He did. “Doesn’t Dr. Padian also say something about sexually transmitted diseases in this study?”

  “Oh, yes. Let me read that. ‘The results of our study… confirm the significant contribution of both injection drug use and infection with other sexually transmitted diseases.’”

  “The ‘significant contribution’…. I assume that means the significant contribution IV drug use and other sexually transmitted diseases would make to the transmission of HIV?”

  “Yes, that’s what it means.”

  “So, Dr. Logan, if neither the defendant nor Miss Brooks were IV drug users or had any other sexually transmitted disease, and we know for a fact that they weren’t and didn’t...”

  “…the chances of HIV transmission are even significantly lower, Mr. Campbell, at least according to Dr. Padian’s study.” It always amazed Campbell how many witnesses were willing, even anxious, to finish his sentences for him.

  Campbell consults his notes one more time. “Dr. Logan, you said you didn’t like the way the study was being presented for publication. Please tell the court why.”

  “The thing that upset me the most was that Dr. Padian started touting her study as proof of how effective condoms were, along with HIV education and what she called ‘behavioral intervention,’ when her study doesn’t say any such thing. If you have 50 couples who are not using condoms consistently getting the same results as the other 125 couples who are, you simply cannot say that condoms make any difference whatsoever. If you have 15 couples who are still having anal sex getting the same results as the other 160 couples who aren’t, you simply cannot say that ceasing anal sex makes any difference whatsoever. Even Dr. Padian admits, right in this paper, that ‘the absence of seroincident infection over the course of the study cannot be entirely attributed to significant behavior change.’”

  “But surely there were people in the scientific community who were able to see through this… ’spin,’ as you called it.”

  “You would hope so, wouldn’t you? And there were some who did. But no one in the AIDS Industry said anything, probably from fear of losing their jobs. And no one wanted to have it publicized that HIV is not transmitted heterosexually. It was just the AIDS dissidents who picked up on it right away and recently have made a big deal out of it – to the point where Dr. Padian had to publish a letter on the Internet defending her study.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  Logan takes another page out of the papers he brought with him. “Once again she tried to say that the whole point of her study was how effective condoms and education were. Here, let me read just one line from that letter: ‘That we witnessed no HIV transmissions after the intervention’ – she’s talking there about the safe sex education classes – ‘documents the success of the interventions in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV.’ But, Mr. Campbell, what about all the sex these couples were having prior to the so-called ‘interventions’ when no HIV tr
ansmission occurred either. If Dr. Padian wanted to draw some conclusion about the effectiveness of interventions, there would have to have been two groups of study subjects: one that got interventions and one that didn’t, so a comparison could be made. But this study was never designed or intended to measure the success of interventions; it was to find out how often HIV is transmitted through heterosexual intercourse. And the answer is ‘never,’ according to the verifiable data in the study. This is such a disgusting example of political ‘spin’ – such a perversion of science – that it makes me sick to see how low some people will go to protect this concept that HIV is transmitted heterosexually.”

  Okay. I’ll let you rant. “Why do you think that’s happening, Dr. Logan?”

  “I think there are a few different answers to that question, Mr. Campbell. First, as we all know, the gay community had to make AIDS into an epidemic that was going to affect everyone – heterosexuals included – or they were going to be stuck with the fact that AIDS was a result of their own behaviors and sexually promiscuous, drug-based lifestyles. Secondly, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health were not going to get increased funding unless they convinced the politicians that HIV and AIDS could spread throughout the world by having heterosexual sex. And thirdly, conservative Christians had gained an enormous amount of power by this time and saw this as a chance to push their religious anti-sex agenda on everyone, using fear as the catalyst. And it worked. Just look at how the abstinence movement took off in this country.”

  Campbell shudders at that last statement, knowing there were probably a number of conservative Christians on the jury who wouldn’t like that. Oh, well. It’s true, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.

  “Dr. Logan, with your direct experience in the Padian study, and as a result of everything you know on this topic, would you sleep with a woman who was HIV-Positive?”

  “You forgot, Mr. Campbell; you’re asking the wrong man that question.” Logan laughs. “But if I were straight, the answer is: Absolutely, I would have sex with an HIV-Positive woman. I can find no good evidence that HIV is transmitted through heterosexual intercourse, and the Padian study is the proof of that.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Logan. Your witness, Mr. Wilson.”

  Wilson stands up confidently. He had obviously taken the long court recess to prepare himself better and get ready for Campbell’s remaining witnesses. No doubt he also got some coaching from Armand.

  “Dr. Logan, just a few questions. You said you left before the final paper had been written to publish the results of Dr. Padian’s study, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So isn’t it possible that you might not have seen or known about all the data that was finally collected, and therefore your conclusions were premature and not based on the information everyone else had?”

  “As far as I know, I knew everything that anyone else did, and it’s all right here in her report.” Logan waves the papers at him.

  “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Wilson’s not giving up so easily. “You also said that it’s possible that the defendant may have infected Miss Brooks while they were having sex for three months.”

  “I said the odds were against it.”

  “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

  “In fact, there’s no way you can tell this jury for sure that Mr. Johnson could not have infected Miss Brooks with HIV, is there?”

  “All I know for sure is what the Padian study says.”

  “And you admit that the Padian study says that it’s possible, doesn’t it?” When Logan doesn’t answer immediately, Wilson quickly says, “That’s all the questions I have, Your Honor.”

  Campbell is up almost immediately. “What exactly does the Padian study say about that possibility, Dr. Logan? For example, ignoring the prospective group of 175 discordant couples where there was absolutely no transmission, tell us about the other group that, as you said, was a study done from past histories?”

  “Well, here’s what the study actually says.” Logan once again finds the section he wants in his papers. “It says that 19% of the women were supposedly infected with HIV from their HIV-Positive partners, and almost half of them had more than 300 sexual contacts.”

  “So at best, Miss Brooks had less than a 20% chance of being infected from the defendant, and less than that if they didn’t make love at least 300 times.”

  “Correct, Mr. Campbell. But that’s not all. The study also says that… let me find that sentence… here it is… ‘the history of sexually transmitted diseases was most strongly associated with transmission.’”

  “So, since there were no sexually transmitted diseases involved in this case, and since we know they didn’t make love at least 300 times, that 1 in 5 chance that Miss Brooks’ had of being infected now shrinks to what… 1 in 10? 1 in 20? Less?”

  “I wouldn’t want to put a number on it, Mr. Campbell, except to say that it would far less than 1 in 5, according to the study, yes.”

  “Dr. Logan, can you at least give the court your expert opinion: Is there reasonable doubt, based on the Padian study, that Ms. Brooks was ever infected with HIV by Mr. Johnson?”

  “There is definitely reasonable doubt, Mr. Campbell.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Logan.”

  Sarah notices that Logan looks sad that his time in the witness chair is over. But he also seems pleased with what he’s said.

  “The witness may step down, and you may call your next witness, Mr. Campbell.” The judge is anxious to keep things going.

  “Your Honor, I’d like to see if we can save the court some time. I have a number of witnesses I would call at this time, all of whom are discordant couples – that is, one partner is HIV-Positive and the other HIV-Negative. All of them have been having unprotected sex with their partners, some of them for as little as two years, some for as long as sixteen years. All of the HIV-Negative partners have had an HIV test within the last month that says they are still HIV-Negative today.”

  When Campbell stops talking, the judge is curious. “What’s your point, Mr. Campbell?”

  “My point, Your Honor, is that there is evidence in addition to the Padian study that HIV is not transmitted sexually, and these couples are the living proof of that. I expect that it will take the rest of today, and perhaps some of tomorrow morning to bring all of these couples to the stand to testify. On the other hand, if Mr. Wilson were willing to stipulate that HIV is not transmitted sexually, I would be happy to skip this entire group of witness and move on to the next topic.”

  The judge looks at Campbell for a long time and almost smiles. Then he looks at the Deputy Solicitor. “Mr. Wilson?”

  Wilson was already out of his chair. “Your Honor, I don’t know how stupid or incompetent Mr. Campbell thinks I am, but that’s ludicrous. The minute I stipulate that HIV is not transmitted sexually, he’ll move to dismiss this case on the basis that the defendant could not have infected Miss Brooks with HIV. No, sir, I don’t agree to that.”

  The judge knew that Campbell knew that tactic would never work. But still, he had guts to try it. “Okay, then, Mr. Campbell, start calling these witness.”