Legal issues may involve marriage, the family, education, employment, discriminatory treatment of individuals, torts, and crimes. Thus, judges may need to decide such issues as whether someone who knowingly transmits a disease can be civilly or criminally liable, whether disease is ever a proper basis for terminating someone's employment, whether medical screening of prison or jail inmates is ever appropriate, how inmates who test positive for HIV should be handled, and the degree of confidentiality of information about inmate test results. In deciding these and other issues, judges should focus on whether policy decisions conform to constitutional requirements and whether AIDS fits within statutory definitions that confer rights or impose duties. Similar issues are involved regarding seropositive defendants in the courtroom. 45 reference notes.