By Van Jones and James Rucker, Color of Change
Posted on June 19, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/54413/
Last Monday, June 11th, a judge finally dismissed the sentence of Genarlow Wilson-the honor roll student and homecoming king serving ten years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. In granting Wilson's habeas corpus petition, Georgia Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson wrote that it would be a "grave miscarriage of justice" for Wilson to be kept in prison for the remaining eight years of his sentence.
Yet, immediately after the judge's ruling, Georgia's Attorney General, Thurbert E. Baker, filed a notice saying that his office would appeal the decision, leaving Wilson stuck in jail. Baker's actions have not only robbed Wilson of his long overdue freedom, they epitomize the insanity of a justice system that seems hell-bent on criminalizing young Black men.
At a New Year's Eve party in 2003, Wilson had consensual oral sex with another teen -- she was 15 and he was 17. Under an old Georgia law, he was convicted of aggravated child molestation, a charge intended for adult sexual predators. Sexual intercourse with the same girl would have been a misdemeanor under a "Romeo and Juliet" exemption for contact between minors; but because the exemption did not mention oral sex, Wilson, an honors student and star athlete with no prior criminal record, received a mandatory ten-year sentence without possibility of parole
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and in that same building on the same day:
Yet right down the hall, Alexander High School English teacher Kari McCarley was standing trial for "carrying on a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male student." She was married, with children. This wasn't a one-time sexual encounter. Her sentence? Three years probation and 90 days in jail.
Like the judge in that case, most of the posters at Free Republic thought her crime was no big deal.
District Attorney David McDade: "We suggested prison time, but the judge imposed a sentence that he felt was right. She [McCarley] was not having sex with a student directly under her supervision."
See, with sexual intercourse, the judge has discretion. With aggravated child molestation, the legislature set the minimum at 10 years. Nevermind that the intent of the legislation was to prosecute adults preying on pre-adolescent children, not two teens where the younger teen initiated the sexual contact.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207995.htm
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