Posted on 07/21/2007 10:36:21 AM PDT by grundle
ATLANTA, July 20 — Only a few observers usually show up for arguments before the Georgia Supreme Court. But the gallery was packed on Friday as the seven justices heard two expedited appeals on behalf of a young man serving a mandatory 10-year sentence for having had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party in 2003.
The man, Genarlow Wilson, now 21, was convicted of aggravated child molestation, which was a felony in Georgia in 2003. The state legislature has since made the crime a misdemeanor.
Mr. Wilson, who was 17 at the time of the party, has served two years of the mandatory minimum sentence, which was so harsh it shocked even the jury members who convicted him. State law also requires that Mr. Wilson be listed as a sex offender for the rest of his life. The two appeals the court heard Friday dealt with whether Mr. Wilson’s sentence was constitutional and whether he is eligible for bond as his appeal moves through the legal system.
But Mr. Wilson’s lawyer, B. J. Bernstein, argued that Mr. Wilson’s case was unique and therefore demanded unique remedies. Even the state legislature realized the mistake made in Mr. Wilson’s case and fixed the law, Ms. Bernstein said, though it did not apply the remedy retroactively to her client.
“Over the years, it is highly extraordinary for our legislature to change a felony with lengthy mandatory minimum prison sentences from a felony to a misdemeanor,” Ms. Bernstein said, adding that she could not find another example as precedent.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The young man was found not guilty of everything but getting a consensual hummer from a girl two years younger than him. Does he deserve 10 years for that?
If true, sounds like a case of media victimization...
Drugs, alcohol and 2 girls, one semi-conscious and one underage, as party favors. That's not innocent.
And don't try the race crap on me again. No matter his color or theirs, he has a loooooooooooooong way to go before he finds what being a REAL man is.
I have to agree with you on that one. My 14 year old son was at a neighboring house with a bunch of friends aged 12-14 (male and female), goofing off, playing video games. One 12 year old girl repeatedly ‘mooned’ everyone all night long, in spite of everyone telling her to knock it off. My son, thinking he would ‘gross her out’ lowered his jeans and pulled the leg of his boxers over, exposing a bit of his genitals for a brief moment (this is in agreement with all the witnesses present.)
We had to go to court for his charges on indecent exposure because one of the ‘mooner’s friends wasn’t quite 12 yet. They also charged him with solicitation because he told one of the other boys ‘Bet you $3 you wouldn’t moon anybody!’ They dropped that one but because of the sex offender law relating to anyone under 12 years of age, they had to find him guilty of indecent exposure. He’s now on the sex offender registry until he’s 30. Seems like kind of a harsh sentence for something the football team did regularly when I was in HS. I think punishing a kid like this for some stupid, thoughtless prank when he’s 14 is a travesty of the sex offender laws.
Oh and yes...the girl wasn’t charged with anything.
See posts 26 and 31.
What does your tagline mean?
Thanks for the facts in this case. They certainly shed a different light than the summaries and outraged replies.
Ditto.
Pul-ease. A 17 year-old boy who likes sex. How awful!!
I understand. I’ve told the story on here before. I have a friend who has a kid who, when he was a Sr this freshman girl, 14 kept following and stalking him. He went to a dance, danced with her. The next day she followed him at the mall and told him if he didn’t go out with her, she’d make sure no one did.
Long story short, she charged him with rape. Made up a good story too. Because she’s a minor, no DNA. She said so, that’s that.
He faced 3-5 in prison so his lawyer talked him into taking a plea. He got 6 mo in county jail, 6 mo tether.
They later found out the prosecutor was ready to drop charges. She didn’t even believe the story. But he was so scared that he just wanted it over.
He got off probation in Oct of 95 just a couple of days AFTER the sex offender registry took affect. Apparently he has to be on it for 25 yrs or unless they keep changing the law.
I can’t tell you how many jobs he’s lost once they find out he’s on the list.
The girl went on to try and charge another kid later but this time SHE was the one over the age. They just let it go.
He has 13 more years on it. But I imagine by then they’ll have him wear some kind of a RED star on his shirt/license plate/etc...
I remember boys in my class did more than that! I had classmates who were always pulling their pants down and they’d all laugh. Now it’s a sex crime. Who’da thunk!
I love it when FReepers play the race card. Of course, the two girls involved in this case were both black, and their parents (single parents, of course) called the law in an after-the-fact sort of effort to protect their daughters. Now that the civil rights establishment has raised sand about the length of Genarlow's term, the mother of the girl involved has waffled about the verdict.
But the fact is that this all got started as yet another case of the police and the court system being called upon to address the chaos of the fatherless black family. Situations like this almost always turn out poorly because the legal system was not established to take the place of responsible parents, but it will no doubt be called upon in the future to do the same. When that happens, I suspect the DA (white or black) will be very reluctant to intervene, even in cases more serious than Genarlow's drug-fueled New Years Eve orgy. Where the aggrieved black mothers will turn then, it's hard to say.
Yeah, just a chip off the old block, no doubt! You take him in. Introduce him to your daughters.
Some day there’ll be a list for all of us. I can’t remember what the new one is some state wants to impose.
Once a sex offender list is used for a Congressman or Senators kid, the law will be tweaked.
Inside joke. In the 1970's cartoon "Super Chicken" (one of the "George of the Jungle" cartoons), whenever the sidekick Fred would question a ridiculous order or hesitate, Super Chicken would say "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."
As a Scout leader, whenever one of my assistants comes to me to whine about parents, or Scouts, or the Council, or you name it . . . I always smile and say "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it." Soon, even the Scouts started using it as a reply when somebody whined or complained.
It finally reached the point where, at the end of each Scouting year, I would give my Assistant Scoutmasters/Assistant Cubmasters a t-shirt that said "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it," with some Scout emblem. Prestige is to go camping in a fifteen-year old "dangerous" t-shirt.
More than you needed to know, right?
For which he was found not-guilty by a jury of his peers. There's something wrong with punishing a guy for a crime he was found not to have committed.
I may be wrong, but I believe the girl who performed oral sex is white. I know her mother is; I've seen her protesting in favor of releasing Genarlo.
The girl who was likely gang-raped while drunk and stoned, and who was locked in the bathroom to keep her from escaping, is black.
The seven guys -- six of whom shared approximately 40 prior arrests -- are all black -- but skin color has nothing to do with being a sexual predator.
I have no doubt there are lots of people who were/are incensed that Genarlo got oral sex from a white girl. Black activists, in particular, point to her race in an attempt to draw attention away from the vile things that Genarlo Wilson and six other young men did to a young black girl. The main case was gang rape and false imprisonment of a black girl.
The videotape was evidence enough that six of the guys pled guilty. The video tape was damning. Five of them essentially acknowledged gang-raping the black girl and holding her hostage, in return for a lesser charge; the sixth acknowledged holding her hostage. Only Genarlo refused to acknowledge what the tape clearly (according to those I know who've seen it, black and white) showed.
I know that Genarlo Wilson refusing to cop a plea is not evidence of guilt. But when everyone else pleads guilty . . . combined with Genarlo Wilson's attitude of "I won't admit to doing anything wrong; I want to be a martyr," I'd say there's a decent chance that was Genarlo's attitude during the trial and sentencing. A good attorney, or a savvy Genarlo Wilson, would have taken the plea long ago.
Don’t feel badly. Sometimes we get had by sob stories that only tell half the truth.
Wilson had been convicted of aggravated child molestation because, at the age of seventeen, he had engaged in oral sex with a willing fifteen-year-old at a New Year's Eve party. Both Wilson and the fifteen-year-old are African American.If I were the NAACP, I'd try to boost my flagging membership by recruiting here on FReeRepublic.
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