Daze Reader

Genarlow Wilson to go free

http://www.dazereader.com/24001060.htm Excellent news from Georgia: Genarlow Wilson to be freed from prison. Wilson had been serving a ten-year sentence with no possibility of parole, for the crime of getting a blowjob from a girl at a party when he was 17 and the girl was 15. Under Georgia law at the time, plain old penis-vagina sex would have been a misdemeanor, but oral sex among consensual participants was technically "felony aggravated child molestation". No one ever disputed that the sex was completely consensual, but prosecutors pursued the most extreme charge and penalty. The Georgia legislature later changed the law to treat consensual oral sex across that age gap as a misdemeanor, but voted against making the change retroactive to Wilson's case, leaving him to serve the full ten years.

In June 2007, a Georgia Superior Court judge ruled that Wilson's ten-year sentence and lifetime sex-offender registration represented cruel and unusual punishment, and reduced Wilson's conviction to a misdemeanor and ordered him free. The Georgia Attorney General appealed this ruling and fought to keep Wilson locked up without bail. But today, finally, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling and ordered Wilson be released.

In the decision, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote that changes in the law "represent a seismic shift in the legislature's view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing teenage participants."

"Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children," the court's majority found.

"For the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of 10 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime," the majority opinion concluded.

This case was an outrage on so many levels. Wilson should never have been charged with any crime, and it's nice to see him get some semblance of justice finally.

 

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