Posted on 06/12/2007 1:32:21 PM PDT by madprof98
Judge says Genarlow Wilson has served enough time for consensual teen sex offense, but attorney general fights ruling.
Genarlow Wilson, sentenced to 10 years in prison for receiving consensual oral sex in 2003 from a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, was ready to walk out of prison Monday after a judge granted his appeal.
But he was told he must remain behind bars while authorities decide if he should be granted bond while the attorney general's office appeals the judge's ruling.
Wilson, 21, learned Monday that his more than two years in prison were apparently coming to an end with the order by Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Wilson.
Within hours, however, state Attorney General Thurbert Baker filed notice that he would appeal the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing the judge had overstepped his authority.
That set Wilson's attorneys scrambling to free him on bond from the Burruss Correctional Training Center in Forsyth. But a prosecutor in the case would not immediately agree to a bond arrangement, Wilson's attorneys said. State prison officials said they would not release Wilson until they receive guidance from Baker's office or the court where he was originally sentenced in Douglas County.
One of Wilson's attorneys described a telephone conversation she had with Wilson after the judge's ruling.
"I just got off the phone with him," B.J. Bernstein angrily told reporters as Wilson's grim-faced mother quietly sat nearby. "He has now heard about the judge's opinion. Literally, people at the prison were saying, 'You are going home today. Congratulations. I want to say goodbye to you.' And I just had to tell that child he is staying there, that we don't have a bond for him, that we can't get him out."
The twists and turns in the case sent Wilson's attorneys and family through several emotional highs and lows Monday. His mother, Juannessa Bennett, praised the judge's ruling, calling it a "miracle." But by afternoon she was too worn out to speak, said a spokeswoman for her son's attorneys.
Bernstein, in a hearing last week, asked Judge Wilson to free her client from prison, asserting that his 10-year prison sentence and inclusion on the state sex offender registry were grossly disproportionate and violated the Constitution. She pointed out that the Legislature changed the law last year to make such an offense a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of one year in prison.
The judge granted the appeal, agreeing Wilson's 10-year prison sentence "would be viewed by society as 'cruel and unusual' in the constitutional sense of disproportionality." The judge also changed Wilson's felony conviction to a misdemeanor without the requirement that he register as a sex offender.
"The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor ... and will spend eight more years in prison is a grave miscarriage of justice," Judge Wilson wrote in his order. "If any case fits into the definitive limits of a miscarriage of justice, surely this case does."
The judge added, "If this court, or any court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish. ... Justice being served in a fair and equal matter."
Baker's office responded in a statement to reporters Monday afternoon, saying Judge Wilson has "absolutely no authority ... to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court, in this case, the Superior Court of Douglas County."
Baker's decision angered civil rights activists, who held a news conference outside his office Monday and called on him to back off the appeal or resign.
"Go —- as our designated champion of law and justice —- and urge the courts to set this political prisoner free," the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a veteran civil rights activist, wrote Baker on Thursday. "You are expected to be more than some robot obeying the whims [and errors] of some heartless machine. ... Where is your conscience, that you would allow this travesty to occur on your watch?"
Wilson was originally charged with raping a 17-year-old at a party on New Year's Eve of 2003, but he was acquitted. He was found guilty of aggravated child molestation involving the 15-year-old girl, a crime that carried a minimum 10-year prison sentence under the law at the time. Four other male youths at the party pleaded guilty to child molestation of the 15-year-old and sexual battery of the 17-year-old. A fifth pleaded guilty to false imprisonment.
Their party was captured on a profanity-laden and sexually graphic video filmed by one of the males. The video shows Wilson having intercourse with the 17-year-old and receiving oral sex from the 15-year-old. Wilson's appeal was filed in Forsyth because he is being held in that city in the Burruss Correctional Training Center. The state attorney general's office is representing Burruss' warden in the appeal.
A problem of precedent
Matt Towery, a Republican state House member from 1993 to 1997, said Monday it was never his intent to lock up teenagers involved in consensual sex acts when he authored the law in 1995 that Wilson was convicted under —- the Child Protection Act. The bill was intended to crack down on child molesters, but it was amended in the Senate, Towery said, to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 —- meaning consensual sex acts with a 15-year-old could result in prison terms usually reserved for serious felonies.
"Needless to say I think justice was done [by Wilson's ruling]," Towery said. "This has been just an absolute nightmare to see young people such as Genarlow go to jail —- compounded by prosecutors and people lobbying —- using videotapes and everything in the world —- to try to keep him in jail."
State Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said he worries about the legal precedent the judge set Monday by ordering Wilson freed. Johnson fought a bill this year that would have let a judge modify Wilson's sentence along with those of many others convicted of certain felony consensual sex crimes between teenagers. The bill failed.
"We have all said that was a harsh sentence," Johnson said of Wilson's 10-year term. "The precedent of this is what I'm concerned about. ... The Georgia Supreme Court already ruled on the constitutionality of some of this. I think this was another ... [judge] enjoying his 15 minutes of fame."
Baker is right to be concerned about legal precedents, said Ron Carlson, a law professor at the University of Georgia, who has authored many books on criminal trial procedures and evidence.
"One issue that attorneys general have to worry about is the so-called floodgate problem," Carlson said. "Since dozens and dozens have been sentenced under the law as it previously existed ... the attorney general may well be worried about hundreds of prisoners banging on their cell doors and demanding the same treatment as Genarlow Wilson. That is a valid concern."
The issue is the victim's age, not the perp's age.
When he graduates from Harvard? I mean, why not? The media have been promoting him as a college-bound paragon who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time--that place and time being the videotaped orgy with girls too drugged up to know what was happening.
That's a legalistic way of weaseling out of an answer. Do you think kids suddenly become wise to the ways of the world on their 16th birthday? Would you prosecute a girl two days after her 16th birthday for having sex with her boyfriend who doesn't turn 16 for another week? To me, that seems a little strange, but I'm genuinely interested in an explanation.
I discover that others were convicted of sexual battery on the the other girl.
But not this kid, an honor student and a star athlete, who was nevertheless sentenced to 10 years in prison. Odd.
The lawyer representing the kid who was imprisoned for oral sex is named BJ? Oh, the irony! :0)
There was an earlier case where a 17 year old girl packed her bags and went with a bunch of kids. This boy was among them. she got loaded, high etc. It was videotaped. The girl cried rape the next morning to her Mom. All the boys but this kid pleaded out-they were threatened with 25 year sentences. This kid would not. It went to trial and he was acquitted. This 15 year old girl was his girlfriend. There is lots of underage sex going on, you are going to need many jails if it is a crime.
So go do something else.
I think punk is a good description of a young man that raped a 17 year old girl (he got off since she was too intoxicated to identify him) and got a gang bang BJ from a 15 year old while his Posse recorded it on a cameraphone.
What word would you choose?
Now, picture it is your 15 year old daughter, now what word would you use.
Really? Because if two high school kids have sex and during the course of the relationship one turns sixteen you want to prosecute him or her for rape? I'm not sure I follow. The whole idea of statutory rape is an implicit power dynamic -- I'm not sure I see that in this or similar cases.
No point bothering these people with the facts. They got their “facts” from the newspapers. Their “honor student” is the type who drugs girls and screws them on camera, but so what? I mean, he’s an “honor student.”
The AG is duty-bound to enforce the laws of the state. It has nothing to do with 'saving face'.
Why was he even arrested, let alone charged, in the first place?
Because he broke the law, and then put it out in a video for all to see.
The law can be changed, but in the meantime, this kid screwed up, and now he's ticked off that he's paying the price for his screw up (even though he was offered a deal so it would go easier on him).
Initially, I thought this sentence was unfair. Now that I've learned more about it, I figure the kid caused his own problems and have no sympathy for him.
I never used to understand why Rudy Giuliani had so many ardent supporters on this forum. I think I understand now.
Now, picture it is your 15 year old daughter, now what word would you use.
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How about whore? She gave him oral sex. How many 17 year olds would turn it down. The jails would be filled with 17 year olds if this was prosecuted very often.
I'm not weaseling out of anything, I don't have enough *FACT* at hand to make a determination as to whether or not this consent was truly consent, or was born of some other factor, though the possiblity for other factors is apparently in play with the few facts I do know. Thus, my determination comes from the law, as it is written. If that makes me "legalistic", then so be it...
the infowarrior
So he wasn't identified but you still want him behind bars? How do you know it was him? Is it just me, or is this vendetta against this kid seeming a little ridiculous. Note that the 15 year old in question in THIS CASE says that everything was consensual. Now I'm not saying I'd like this kid or want him around my daughters, but putting him in prison for a consensual act with someone essentially his own age seems utterly absurd.
What does Rudy Giuliani have to do with you being a red neck racist?
This PUNK turned down this deal:
As recently as this past weekend, the Douglas County District Attorney’s office offered Genarlow Wilson’s attorneys a plea deal that would have allowed Genarlow Wilson to plead to First Offender Treatment, which would mean that he would not have a criminal record nor would he be subject to registering on the sex-offender registry once his sentence had been completed. The plea deal, if accepted by Genarlow Wilson’s lawyers, could also result in Genarlow Wilson receiving a sentence substantially shorter than the 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for which he was originally sentenced, possibly leading to his release based upon time already served. Genarlow Wilson, through his attorneys, rejected all of those offers. The District Attorney’s office has indicated that the plea offer will remain available to Genarlow Wilson notwithstanding the appeals process.
Sounds like he should serve 8 more years.
Respect for the law <> Racism, if you really feel that way go here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
You will be far more comfortable there.
He’s calling you a left wing troll, but in a oblique way.
Judging from your posts in this thread, that is a correct designation.
I was just reading the other thread about the 12 year old who plotted and followed through on killing her parents and 8 year old brother to be with her 22 year old boyfriend. Seems like we don't give these "kids" enough credit for what they are capable of consenting to.
Giuliani’s followers are the kind of people who substitute PC name-calling for morals and values. What if the punk were white? What name would you call me then?
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