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 ...
Good. This case was nothing more that people worshiping the law, regardless of what it says. Putting a 17 year old honor student in prison for 10 years for oral sex is stupid.
A judge who understands human nature, error and makes a distinction between crime and stupidity.
The kid's parent(s) should get 10 years for naming him that....
Happy ending....sorry
Not only that, but our esteemed (not) former president says oral sex doesn’t count.
And if he’d been 18 then he should’ve been prosecuted? What if she was 14 and he was 17?
The law does not distinuish between the minor who is 18 and drunk and the minor who is 20years and 11months and drunk. Both are in violation of the law.
Honor student or not the guy proved he's an idiot.
“makes a distinction between crime and stupidity.”
You’re not going to find too many guys who agree that getting oral at 17 is an error.
Well we wouldn’t want to stop consensual teenage sex would we President Carter. What would happen if “Dad” banged Genarlow’s head off the door jamb on the way out after catching him on his little girl?
The error was he should have been with a girl 16 years old, 1 day. The age of consent in Georgia is 16.....en error in his judgement.
Since when can a 15 year-old consent to sex?
It’s like a 15 year-old consenting to buy a house.
Quite a stretch of an analogy.
I like the fact he has been released, but can’t help buy think of the irony that many here who think the judge made the proper decision also cry foul about judges “legislating from the bench”. There was a law in place which was violated. On what grounds did the judge overrule this? Or is he creating his own law?
The law does not distinuish between the minor who is 18 and drunk and the minor who is 20years and 11months and drunk. Both are in violation of the law.
I can tell you are another of the law worshipers. I know it is a hard thing to ask in this age, but is it too hard for our legal system to use good reason and critical judgment? 10 years for a minor having oral sex with another minor only 2 years younger! 10 years! The villain in this case isn't the 17 year (he was just stupid). It is the legal system that threw his life away. And it is the people who worship that legal system and excuse any outcome as long as it follows "the rule of law."
I have no idea what you are trying to say. Neither 18 or 20 are minors.
You are yet another law worshiper. See #16.
I can’t answer your questions. Here is a description of the original trial etc, composed by a liberal, nonetheless revealing.....
snip:
During the trial, in response to Wilson’s pointed questions about the propriety of prosecuting people for such conduct, Douglas County District Attorney David McDade said that he did not write the law, implying that he had no choice but to prosecute Wilson for aggravated child molestation. McDade said separately that Wilson should have taken a plea deal but that he failed to do so because he “has decided to become a martyr.”
These statements are remarkable in three respects. First, we should be quite disturbed to learn that a prosecutor, who has more discretion in carrying out his job than almost anyone else in the criminal justice system, is prepared to rely on the Nuremberg defense. Yes, a criminal statute literally applied to Wilson’s conduct, but the District Attorney has no obligation to enforce the law slavishly, when even he himself concedes that “[w]e don’t believe that a 10-year sentence is an appropriate punishment [in this case].”
Second, the notion that the decision to exercise one’s Sixth Amendment right to a trial - rather than waive that right by pleading guilty - is a deliberate choice of “martyrdom,” is positively offensive.
Third, McDade’s suggestion that it was Wilson’s responsibility to have taken a pleading option - literally, a confession in exchange for a more lenient punishment - is precisely the sort of “confess and convert” thinking that characterizes a theocratic justice system. It is perhaps no coincidence that the District Attorney chose the word “martyrdom” to describe Wilson’s ultimate punishment for refusing to say what he does not believe: that he did something terrible and deserves to be branded a “child molester” for life and punished for his sins.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20070110.html
Ideally, the judge would have let the ruling stand, the 17 year old would have been pardoned by the governor, and the law would have been fixed by the state legislature to include a Romeo and Juliet clause.
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