Posted on 06/11/2007 11:05:28 AM PDT by John Cena
ATLANTA — A Georgia judge on Monday voided a 10-year sentence given to a man who was convicted while a teenager of having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl.
Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson voided Genarlow Wilson's sentence and dropped it to misdemeanor aggravated child molestation with a 12-month sentence, plus credit for time served. Under the new ruling, he will not be required to register as a sex offender
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Imagine that it's your daughter.
And, even in the absence of statutes, judges are bound by the common law. Given the prevalence of mandatory minimum sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines, the arbitrariness advocated by other posters on this board simply doesn't exist.
That sentences were handed out by a look-up chart in a computer database?
You mean like the federal sentencing guidelines, which is exactly a lookup chart? When they were adopted, judges pissed and moaned and screamed about how they were too rigid and inflexible.
But notice what happened when the Supreme Court struck down the federal sentencing guidelines last year: judges, almost uniformly, still follow them in handing out sentences. Predictability is an asset.
If you can defend it, answer my one question:
In the absence of predictability, how is one to engage in a pattern of rational decision making?
I saw this kid do an interview recently, and according to the story, the football team decided to do some celebrating and they got a hotel room for the party. Sombody had a video camera and the girl / victim in question stopped by with another friend, they asked if they could give some freebies and this kid just happened to be the one caught on camera. Kid swears if he could do it all over again, he’d make better choices, so let’s hope all the people that went to bat for him don’t let him forget it. If a kid was smart, first he wouldn’t be at the party, but if he was and some idiot showed up with a camera, he’d get the hell out of there.
“Imagine that it’s your daughter.”
I will kill them all.
She would have to have lied to even be there.
Hopefully the parents didnt consent to her going to a party.
I hope so. I think it’s terrible that all those other boys were coerced into signing pleas.
The fact is that the other five were all poor and minorities and were bullied into pleas because the DA “guaranteed” them that if they went to trial, he would seek the maximum sentence, they’d be convicted and get 10-25 years. This was a “you better plea this out or else....” case from the get go, as you probably realize.
“... I don’t think the young man committed a crime as outlined by the law ...”
The girl was 15; the age of consent for sexual activity in Georgia is 16; therefore, the young man was guilty of statutory rape, under Georgia law.
“... and deserved 10 years in jail.”
Here, I agree - the sentence seems excessive to me.
“This was a “you better plea this out or else....” case from the get go, as you probably realize.”
It seems pretty basic, but I think some freepers are getting a little emotional here...
I know of a case very similar to this one-young girl. I know the girls family very well. She went to a party got high, drank to excess and had sex with a number of drunken, high school boys. Her parents were furious and wanted the boys charged. The DA would not do it. It was kids having sex with kids...DA’s have a choice. Let use common sense in implementing the law.
So, I guess we don't have a look-up chart after all, do we.
Predictability is an asset.
And rigidity is a liability. You do as much damage to the people's trust in the Rule of Law by outrageously harsh punishments for minor offenses as you do for outrageously lenient sentences for heinous crimes.
Legislatures make laws, judges conduct trials and hand out sentences based upon law. The system for which you advocate sounds much more like Sharia than the one we have...and I support. Only under Sharia is a judge prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. We separate the functions.
If you don't like the law, change it...
“It was kids having sex with kids”
Not according to Georgia law as Riverdawg above pointed out.
Else there would have been a lot of people locked up in Georgia prisons before this new law Romeo-Juliet law passed
Its amazing how the law is being ignored here when constantly I see threads complaining about judges legislating from the bench.
I guess it depends on the case?
I have raised one teenager successfully, I have two teens now- 15 and 17. Kids today are having sex at very early ages. My duaghter (15) is one of the last of the kids she knows to not have sex.
I have told her; I do not believe you or any other teen is mature enough to have sexual relations with all the stuff that go with it. I hope she will wait, but who knows?
Society seems bent on ruining kids lives these days. They make no allowance for youthful folly or for stupid mistakes. Even adults who have accidents are often prosecuted these days even if drugs, alcohol or excessive speed are not involved. We seem bent on locking people u in modern society. I am tired of it.
Stupid law-badly written and now changed. Should this kid be the last one locked up because of this idiotic law. The Georgia legislature should have made it retroactive. It’s still kids having sex with kids and certainly, this boy does not deserve 10 years in prison.
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