Georgia Court Orders Release Of Man Jailed For Consensual Sex As Teen
By Logan Murphy Thursday Oct 25, 2007 1:01pm
AP Via Yahoo:
Georgia's Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of a young man who has been imprisoned for more than two years for having consensual oral sex with another teenager.
The court ruled 4-3 that Genarlow Wilson's 10-year sentence was cruel and unusual punishment.
Wilson, 21, was convicted of aggravated child molestation following a 2003 New Year's Eve party at a Douglas County hotel room where he was videotaped having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. He was 17 at the time. Read more...
Wilson's sentence was voided in June, yet he remained in prison for more than four additional months and has lost over two years of his life. Can you imagine if this sort of nonsense took place all over the country? Millions of teens would be imprisoned for simply possessing hormones and experimenting with sex. The kind of ignorance that breeds this sort of inhumanity ruins lives, and in some cases, kills.
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That's the South for ya!
Republicans have some obsession with the BJ.
The fact that this had to go to the state supreme court, and then was overturned by a single-vote margin is deeply disturbing, regardless of the positive ultimate outcome. A case of, "See! The system barely works!", IMHO...
Let us not forget, they took issue with the sentence imposed, not the crime he was charged with!
Going Down South?
Don't forget -- oral sex is still considered "sodomy" in the glorious state of Georgia.
Fiiiiirst!
Poor kid...that is such a damn shame! I hope he sues the shit out of the people who got him locked up!!!
liberalNmoderation @ 6:
ok so I'm nowhere near first....
People are happy that he was released? Why? The conviction should be vacated because the law is ridiculous. This "conviction" was nothing more than ambitious lawyers trying to score political points.
I wonder what the sentence would have been had the girl been white.
Of course, not all teens would be placed in prison. Only the black ones or other categories deemed undesirable.
He got busted for FWB
liberalNmoderation @ 6:
I don't think they overturned the law that he was imprisoned under.... they just ruled that the punishment was excessive.
does anyone know if there are still other states with similar laws?
At least he was finally released. That's the great news.
3 judges voted that 10 years was NOT cruel and unusual????? W o W.
Doug @ 2:
I was just thinking that is that all about !!
Is it because they don't get any ? .
Hmm and I'm liberal and I get loads ......... I see a pattern here .......
Isn't funny that the vote was that close 4-3. I'm sure the three that voted are bible thumpers.
DiggyG @ 11:
also, according to what im seeing on msnbc right now, the reason he's being released isn't that the court found the law to be unconstitutional... it's because the GA legislature changed the law to downgrade the punishment, but refused to make it retroactive (i.e. inspired by the obvious injustice at work, they changed the law, but then sold out the guy that caused the changes in the first place... apparently just because they wanted to be dicks about it).
Jerry...ya might want to be better at word choice than "I get loads"
JerryM @ 14:
Not unless it is coming from a man in a public bathroom
JerryM @ 14:
thanks for sharing
This is an horrific example of stupidity, ignorance, and down-south republican prejudice.
Republican prejudice against heterosexual oral sex should not condemn our youth to incarceration.
Justice is finally served, but still in a bastardized way, and barely escaping with a 1 vote majority. This poor kid will now have to fight for absolutely everything in his life - houses, cars, jobs, anything - because this is on his record. He deserves more than just having the sentence voided, he deserves damages from the state, a couple mill would suffice. I hope he gives GA the finger for this one. He's a much better man than I if he doesn't though.
Nobody deserves this type of treatment for doing what hundreds of thousands of teenagers get away with on a daily basis.
raymond @ 17:
Hmmmm ....... well yes, fair point ......... umm .......... err Seth Green told me say it .......
Udon Nomee @ 3:
My initial thought as well. The vote was 4-3???!!! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN 6-0! Whats wrong with this country, for christsake. A 17 yo boy got a blowjob, hang 'em high. Blackwater kills Iraqis, look the other way. I want to move to Canada.
This is not just a partisan "South" thing.
I was the foreman on a Grand Jury in Lane Co. Oregon where a 16 year old girl's dad was prosecuting her 19 year old boyfriend for Statutory rape. Her little sister had ratted her out to the dad for not being able to borrow the older sister's CD Discman. Essentially, the dad was using the courts to punish his daughter for having sex.
The DA was brutal in getting us to vote to move to indict this stupid kid who according to his testimony didn't even know that there was a law he was breaking. She even went so far as to pull me aside and infer that she could make my home address a regular stop for the Eugene police just in case I might becoming home late after a party of some some nonsense.
We rolled over and sent it to trial. I still think about that kid 12 years later and what happened to him
We're fucked, people...the senate just confirmed another of Bush's nut-jobs for a judgeship in Mississippi.
We are just so fucked...
Tom Smith @ 23:
7-0
the sexophobic right should be ashamed of itself. All their leaders like John Hagee had affairs but they wanted to lock up this kid
Dark Ages Punishment. Unacceptable.
But t be honest I'm still not comfortable with this base instinct sexuality being pushed on kids. Whatever happened to the Art of Romance?
Let's swap Georgia Alabama and Mississip for Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Guam as states...that way we can keep old glory unchanged....
well, as long as America has existed, the black man has been the target of injustice. every once in a while it gets so egregious, such as this case or jena(la), that the public takes notice. There's a 17-year-old in texas who was given 24 year for bumping into a teacher in the hallway at school. Just another story not seeing the light of day thanks to an indifferent press and a skewed federal justice department.
I am shocked that the GA Supreme Court found in his favor. After all, they and SC, AL, MS are the last bastions of the Confederacy and the racism it engendered. That said, I surely hope he will be collecting big bucks for having his life destroyed at 17 years old. No one put Strom Thurmond in prision when he raped his mother's maid. They rewarded him by electing him even as a corpse in SC. (He was supposedly living at a hospital in DC. I doubt it.)
Thank God, he's free! What a horrible waste. I've seen this guy interviewed, and he is not bitter. He owes a great deal of that to the loving support of his family.
How can we possibly understand Republican hypocrisy? Save unborn children, but once they are born, they don't deserve any health care. Marriage is the cornerstone of our civilization and the Republicans get caught in one sex scandal after another.
Rudy Giuliani is now pandering to the Christian Right to be their "values" candidate. Rudy is caught in a new lie every day and is obviously delusional, while the Baptist Minister candidate, Mike Huckabee, is completely ignored by them. I guess his Jesus is just not good enough for them. To paraphrase what Bill Maher said, "Jesus: wrong on taxes, wrong on healthcare, WRONG for America!".
Udon Nomee @ 3:
Good observations of the facts. Hate it when I do read these things as close as I shoud. Thanks Udon.
The treatment of the poor, the Black, Brown or otherwise non-white is an indication of what the rich & elite have in store for everyone who isn't like them.
Errr, meant to say....when I Don't read...
I just hate that they classified it as "RAPE", I always assumed rape was when someone said NO, not YES. How backwards are the nosey ass people that should mind their own sex life.. if they have one, Jealous effers.
this kid was a good football player too....wonder if any school would still honor any 'ship offers??
Chopvac @ 8:
The saddest part was these anti-American, scum, less-than-human prosecutors appealed this all the way to the state's Supreme Court. And that the decision was only 4-3.
Georgia, get a clue and knock these scum out of power. Seriously.
DiggyG @ 16:
Damn...well he's out and thats a good thing...he looks like a nice kid too...I hope he didn't come out all mean and like "kill whitey" and shit...couldn't really blame him though...
What about the DA, or the sherriff or whatever, the one guy involved in the case made COPIES of the tape, and distributed them to others in law enforcement? SHouldn't that asshole be charged for somethin? Like owning and distributing child pornography or something?
Thank god the bigots lost - finally.
i dont think it is made clear in the above comments, but i believe the law he was tried under was filming a sex act involving a minor. of course, it was consensual and he was also a minor so this should never have gone to court. some of the jurors who ended up deciding his guilt even came out later and said the law is absurd and they were opposed to the mandatory 10 year sentence.
the irony is that, when the georgia legislature moved to lessen the penalty for consenting minors, they didnt make the change in law retroactive. what big f*ck you to this guy, huh.
10 years for filming a consensual sex act....
another attempt to legislate morality gone tragically awry.
Do you think what happened to the District attorney in SC for the Duke case will happen to the DA that prosecuted Genarlow? I mean it's only fair to me
At least in prison he was safe from giving or receiving blowjobs!
The conviction was based on an amateur video tape showing Wilson engaging in sex with a 17-year-old girl during a private party, and later being offered and receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl.[3][4] The video shows the 17-year-old girl on the bathroom floor, then later having sex with Wilson. She appeared sleepy or intoxicated during the sex act but did not ask Wilson to stop. [5] Waking up naked and disoriented the next morning, she claimed to have been raped.[4] Investigating the alleged rape, police later found condoms and evidence of drinking, as well as the video camera, in the motel room used for the party.
The next question is, since these are kids-minors who still live at home. How should something like this be handled in the future in courts of law?
If you would lock up everyone guilty of his type of crime, most of the Republicans would sit behind bars.
I am happy for this kid!
Ten years in prison is a good way to send a message to all them black boys in Georgia:
Stop Messin With Our White Womenfolk.
C @ 43:
Sadly, no. The accused where white boys at Duke. Nothing will be done in SC.
wmholt @ 48:
Err... make that "Nothing will be done in Georgia".
People are happy that he was released? Why? The conviction should be vacated because the law is ridiculous. This “conviction” was nothing more than ambitious lawyers trying to score political points.
I wonder what the sentence would have been had the girl been white.
There's a kid named Marcus Dixon who could tell you what the sentence would have been - he got a ten year stretch for screwing a white girl, plus they tacked on a charge of statutory rape (he was 17, the girl was 15).
Marcus Dixon was a local high school football player, scholarshipped to college to play ball; was a B+ - A- student academically, and because he screw a white girl who went to the same school with him (and it was consensual), he, too, lost two-three years of his life in jail while waiting for the Georgia State Judicial System to straighten out all of that mess.
I believe he's out of jail now. But, when he got out, there were no colleges waiting for him, no NOTHING. I don't know what he's doing now.
No wonder the state of Georgia is bass ackwards when it comes to sex. Want to know why my home state (California) is considered to be "laid back".
The residents blow off a lot of tension and have lots of fun by having sex on the regular. Maybe in people in the South did the same thing, instead of reserving it for procreation purposes only, you would have DA's taking these kids to court and appearing before a judiciary that imposes such ludicrous prison sentences, that the rest of the country believes that the South mocks the very laws they took oaths to uphold.
Some don't have to imagine anything.
Another video related false imprisonment....Hint to teens: If someone is video taping you having sex with a fifteen year old....Expect jail time. DUH.
(He should never have spent that much time in jail...Glad he's out.)
Sorry, I meant to say, "you wouldn't have DAs taking these kids to court..."
I type faster than my thoughts, lol
This is what these sex offender laws have become. Rush to judgment, convict to the highest degree the most minor of offenses just to please a very small portion of the electorate. There are thousands of people on these registries for the same types of "offenses" as young Mr. Wilson. The very fact that there is a segment of the population that for some ridiculous reason thinks that 18 is some sort of magical barrier where an individual suddenly becomes an adult (yes, I know that there has to be an age limit drawn somewhere) is disturbing. Evaluate the individual and the incident. Some people aren't "adults" until they are in their mid 20's. Some 13-year-olds are as self-aware and mature as some 30-year-olds. These absolute laws are only a way of politicians appearing to be "tough on crime" with no regard for the harm that they cause. This poor young man will never gain his life back. The same can be said for thousands of others. It is way past time that our courts reexamined Megan's Law and other such egregious miscarriages of justice and put in place laws that really do protect children without painting with such a wide brush.
Albatross @ 44:
Yeah, cuz that NEVER happens in prisons! HA!
Did the girl happen to be white by any chance?
wmholt @ 48:
First of all, Duke University is in NC and the case that's the topic of this post is in GA.
Even though he was released, this law is still on the books. He ought to have his record expunged and a settlement paying for his college tuition. If it were a white kid, I'm sure that would be the judgment.
Anal sex probably gets you life!
The only reason in Ga for prosecuting this terrible crime, was that the girl was white, and Marcus was black! If Marcus had been white, and the girl black, all that would of happened was, a good scrubbing of the boy's mouth out with Ivory Soap!
Jesus. It took 4 years? That's awful. I'd contribute to a fundraiser for this kid.
The south and racism.
I'm glad the young man is out but he had no business in jail.
Yeah, just imagine if the girl involved was white! Funny how the D.A. was all about making sure that this kid "got justice" Funny though, a friend of mine who is down that way who did an iternship in the D.A.'s office in an adjoining county say that David McDade and his office let some seriously adult sex ofenders get away with some horrible crap, but they are good old Christian men who were weak and needed a second chance. So, if you are old white and want to rape a child, do in Douglas county, GA - a sex tourist's paradise. Forget Thailand.
Cleveland Bob @ 24:
thanks for your example. i also know for a fact that this sort of thing is national. the more we just point fingers at the south, the more we allow this type of thing to happen in our own backyards all across the nation.
Should have never been in jail in the first place but thank god he's free.
Seriously, the only thing conservatives have to contribute to a problem is more punishment.
FWIW Both the girl and the prosecutor in this case were black.
DiggyG @ 11:
Being from the state of Georgia (sorry, terribly sorry), the law was amended some time ago to exclude this type of miscarrige. It is enacted to give the law a greater chance to jail people who prey on children. However, it didn't include any language about the age difference between the "children" so that this poor young man (who many in the state have been fighting like demons to get free) was charged and sentenced. It was only after this case that the problem was realized. Now the law is still on the books but amended to exclude "Romeo & Juliet" type interactions.
If this "R & J" exception had been on the books, he never would have been charged. As far as the idiot DA who kept him in jail even after his sentence voided, the man truly needs to experience the karma he has coming.
I wouda been locked up long before I was 17. Holy moly!!!
Dr. Acula @ 57:
Also, the Duke boys were innocent. No rape took place.
The crimes were with the police, the DA and a judge who let the DA get away with the outrageous behavior of the DA. Duke University was also at fault for the way it acted. Also, the media charged them, tried them and convicted them before it even came to court.
I forgot. Those three judges must be very scary people. 10 years in jail for teen sex??? Guess we know what they didn't do in high school (or did do, but now loathe themselves.)
He was released so he could be escorted to the tree with the noose hanging from it.
I lived in Atlanta for several years and I can tell you first hand, drive too far ouside I-285 the Atlanta perimeter and they are still fighting the civil war. I remember seeing a bumper sticker on the back of a pick up truck on a rural state highway in Georgia that read "If I knew this was going to happen I would have picked my own damn cotton!"
Georgia is a bigoted backwater redneck cultural conservative wasteland.
Spock @ 59:
No. You get lynched. But first they tie you to the back of a pickup and drive around town.
wmholt @ 48:
Duke is in North Carolina not South Carolina.
Ruthless People @ 72:
I lived in Atlanta for 8 years and once you goutside the perimeter (I-285) it does get conservative and in some spots neanderthal, but I wouldn't paint all of GA that way - I have seen some good spots there as well, there are many places like that outside of the city, here in NY, some are just as bad as there. Give some of teh people in GA a fair shake, my folks live in Gwinnett county and are pretty progressive :-)
Do I see 'Activist Judge' yet?
I am sure they will blame them - soon.
Ricky Bones @ 75:
I didn't say everybody but a higher percentage are when compared to New York, which is where I live too btw - NYC, I couldn't wait to get out of the south. I'm sure your folks as well as a lot of people in Gwinnett county are progressive but lets not forget this is the county that also elected Clinton Inquisitor Newt Gingrich. Gwinnett is also a suburb of Atlanta, it's not the sticks either.
This is an example of how dumb America is seen to the World. Most pre-teens in America have sex as we have seen with the White House programs of trying to stop the situation. Even those in Georgia State have had teenage sex maybe they wont say it now. Our Law Makers are looking to have sex with kids ask Foley. Rush goes overseas to have sex with kids. Now if that law in Georgia were truly enacted all the adults would be in jail. Most older people choose to forget that part of their lives and act like they were saints. If you don't believe me check the ages of some of the children of our Law Makers. Remember Storm Thurman had a black kid no law broken. Woman are raped in Georgia with no charge against the accused. Yet a black kid having sex gets him 10 years in jail and a Senator who molest kids goes free. Libby obstructed Justice and lied under oath but 18 months jail time is to make for a GOP criminal. The Law Makers of Georgia show they don't represent all the people of their State, yet they want your vote. When you have the KKK Grand Wizard in the Oval Office this is the results. All the KKK members come out of hiding.
I'm glsd he is free, at least for now.. Ridiculous overstep of law officials!
Chopvac @ 8:
The girl was white and that was the only reason the case went to trial.
I've been posting about Genarlow Wilson for a while, and I see some misinformation being posted here.
He was not arrested for or charged with anything to do with making the videotape. He was originally going to be charged with rape of a different girl (who I believe was NOT white) at the party, who had been so drunk she passed out and when she woke thought she'd been raped. The videotape actually helped Wilson and the others charged here, because it showed the sex to be consensual.
What he was charged with was having oral sex with a minor (who, I believe, WAS white). He was 17, she was 15. At the time, GA law considered "sodomy" with a minor to be a felony, but if they'd had intercourse he could have only been charged with a misdemeanor. The oral sex was consensual and initiated by the girl. This raised such outrage that the state lege changed he law, but failed to make it retroactive. Under the new law, he'd still be guilty of a misdemeanor for having sex with a minor since she was two years younger than he.
The new ruling essentially maintains his guilt but reduces the punishment to a misdemeanor level (1 year in prison) and he's getting out with time served - most importantly, and the reason he did not plead guilty in the first place for a reduced sentence, he will not be registered as a sex offender.
Wilson's attorney says the split decision was mostly over technicalities over whether the changed law could be used in deciding if the original punishment was cruel and unusual.
CNN has done a pretty good job of keeping the facts straight in their reporting.
If there's anything to be learned from all of this, it's that mandatory sentencing is a horrible, horrible idea. That's why we have "judges" - they are supposed to judge. The other thing we learn is that the judicial system is way too free and loose throwing around the "sexual offender" designation, considering what an impact that has on people's lives. Sunny at Smashed Frog has posted a lot of commentary on that subject as well.
It ain't just the south ya'll. The US military enforces similar sodomy laws. Maybe thats why Rummy was always so uptight.
eek! my 17 yr old boyfriend, when i was FOURTEEN, would have been electrocuted i guess. going down for going down.
sad ass stuff. for this guy to not be set for life by a monetary judgment, would be adding insult to his horrible injury.
sad.
It is quite the shame that blatant occurrences of injustice like this in 2007, but at least the young lad is out now.
Speak English, Live Latin @ SITV.com
L.A. Confidential @ 28:
=======================
pushed on kids? do you realize that people have always had sex? i had sex for the first time at 14 and I was -well not the aggressor-tee hee:)
never mind the post-i'm off for a little day dream...:)
oops, darn that button, i always forget.
I'm so glad he's out. Don't the tighty-rightly's have anything better to do than kill, torture, spy and try to dictate everyone else's sex life? Good god!
A miscarriage of "justice" against a Black man on an alleged crime against a White woman in the South?? SHOCKING!!!!
Even though Lee surrendered 140+ years ago, some attitudes will never die.
In the joint at 17 for what?? Essentially being a horny teen-ager in the midst of puberty?... Two years..... Yea, I just bet THAT experience re-habilitated him..... My condolences to him and his family. Is this a wonderful country or what......Sick shit is what this amounts to. Abuse by authorities against a minor (at the time)................JD
Amazing. The South got one right. I'm stunned. Great decision.
I can't help but smell the intolerant FIST of the religious right in this crap. I'm sure this will scar this young man's psyche for the rest of his life.
Damn the people who put him in prison.
I hope he can get his life back. Libby outs a spy, lies about it under oath and never spends a minute in prison. Wonderful justice system we have.
These clowns don't realize - Life is Sex
Every living creature lives for sex. Yes, that includes plants.
Best wishes for Genarlow Wilson. I hope that he gets a book deal and gets rich in the process. That would really get under the skin of the compassionate conservative Christian community.
How come we aren't hearing about who the judge is who imposed this sentence?
mister mix @ 64:
Thank you for your comment. I'm glad I read it before I posted, because it's somrthing I was going to address myself. VERY true. I've lived in several areas of the United States, southern, northern, and western states, and visited or spent time in other regions, and I found that, there are mean, hateful, and prejudiced people everywhere.
BTW: lynchings are still "popular." In Cocomo, Mississippi. about a year ago, a 17 year-old Black youth was lynched for reason of, "he only dated white girls."
I'm sure it's not really helping that every place in the world is stuffing his face on the Internet with the news yet again... regardless as to whether it's good or bad, it's associating him with the story even more than I think would ever be beneficial to him.
So, do you think that Kansas will release the 19 year old boy who's serving 20 years for having consensual sex with a 16 year old boy?
Undercover Brother @ 37:
That is the nu behind this and the Jena case. Both the youngsters prosecuted were not high school dropouts but college bound scholarship winners. Doesn't everyone see the pattern in that? It really isn't that random. The sex charges were merely icing on the cake.
Shared Humanity @ 80:
The girl was 15 and black. If you look, you'll find several news reports to back that up.
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