10 year sentence for consensual sex voided

The Coffee Shop
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This just hit the newswire. A kid who was 17 was convicted of a sex crime for a consensual sexual act with a 15 year old. I judge just voided the sentence. I haven’t seen the opinion as of yet. He served 27 months and basically lost his remaining youth and potential opportunities because of faulty prosecutorial discretion.

Here’s the news brief from nbc5.com. Note that there was a technical crime committed, and he remains convicted of a misdeameanor on a 12-month sentence.

**ATLANTA – ****A Georgia judge voided a 10-year sentence Monday for Genarlow Wilson for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. Instead, the judge gave him a 12-month misdemeanor sentence with credit for time he has already served. **The state is likely to appeal the ruling from Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson. Genarlow Wilson – who has already served more than 27 months – is expected to remain behind bars while that appeal proceeds.

Here is the espn.com article from a couple of months ago.

LINK

Interesting reading, some bits:

“When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.”

AND

“Genarlow Wilson and his friends checked into the Days Inn right off Interstate 20. At some point in the night, according to court documents and evidence presented at trial, some girls came over to party with them. Bourbon and marijuana were consumed. One of the young men turned on a video camera. Later in the evening, a 17-year-old girl began to have sex with the young men, first in the bathroom, then on the bed. Genarlow is captured on tape appearing to have sex with the girl from behind. Her hand is clearly visible on the floor supporting herself. Witnesses said she was a willing participant. The next morning, the girl awoke in a stupor, wearing nothing but her socks. She called her mother and said she had been raped.”
This lie re being raped, was inconsistent with the video showing her …

“performing oral sex on a partygoer and, after finishing with him, turning and performing the act on Genarlow. She was the instigator, according to her mother’s testimony. Problem was, the girl was a year under the age of consent.”
One other thing is that, Genarlow being under 18, SHE committed a misdemeanor too for an act on a minor, but was never charged.“Local prosecutors called the act aggravated child molestation, following the letter and not the spirit of the law, which was designed to prosecute pedophiles. olestation, following the letter and not the spirit of the law, which was designed to prosecute pedophiles.”

The point here is not whether I think it is ok for 15 year olds and 17 year old to have sex. The point is that this case was grossly, inappropriately and excessively handled. There was never a need to charge it to the excess as the archaic felony. All states have a laundry list of minors’ sex crimes, and all that had to be done was to generally charge a misdemeanor act and gain a plea of guilty under threat of enhancement, or charge the felony and then negotiate a misdemeanor reduced sentence.

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What was he charged with? Statutory rape?

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“aggravated child molestation”
.

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Does he still have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life? The stigma of being a child molester is a harsh sentence.

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This is just an example of a runaway prosecutor not making sane use of the discretion given to him as a prosecutor. The power to prosecute is the power to destroy when it is not checked by reason.

I am guessing that many of those who criticize this prosecutor also think it is OK for Ronnie Earle to make up never before seen felonies out of standard campaign finance procedures to go after Tom Delay and not see a hint of a connection.

The sad thing is that the judge should probably be overturned on the merits. It is tough in a case like this for me to hope that the Appeals Court will make up some reason out of thin air to uphold the sanity when that approach is so often misused.

This kind of case is exactly what the executive power of the governor to issue pardons is for. Where is the governor in all this?

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It also exposes the problem with mandatory sentensing. The original judge iddnt want to hand down such a harsh jail term but his hands were tied. When there are mandatory sentences, you eliminate common sense.

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The void is being appealed by the prosecutors office right now and unfortunately the kid is going to remain in custody until the appellate process is over. This case really saddens me. A kid with so many opportunities ahead of him, apparently he was an honor student, stand-out athlete, and headed to college before all of this happened.

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This kind of case is exactly what the executive power of the governor to issue pardons is for. Where is the governor in all this?

I think the Georgia governor does not have such power. I believe it rests in a parole or clemency board. I seem to recall something about governors abusing the power in favor of white defendants with black victims so it was taken away by the legislature.

I think this is difficult because of the surrounding circumstances. I suppose I am a prude and a nerd but a drug and alcohol induced orgy with young teenagers engaging in sex acts with multiple partners while being video taped is foreign to me. The honor students I went to high school with never invited me to those kinds of parties. By the way, my team mates on the football team, the basketball team and the lacrosse team never invited me to those kinds of parties either.

While I think the sentence is harsh and probably unconstitutionally so, this guy is no hero. This was not a romeo and juliet case of young lovers getting caught in a private intimate moment. This was misogynistic abuse of pretty high order.

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The sad thing is that the judge should probably be overturned on the merits. It is tough in a case like this for me to hope that the Appeals Court will make up some reason out of thin air to uphold the sanity when that approach is so often misused.

This kind of case is exactly what the executive power of the governor to issue pardons is for. Where is the governor in all this?

Art, I didn’t read the judge’s opinion as of yet, but I thought the same thing. The charge WAS to the letter and the kid DID commit the crime, so I am unsure if there is a basis to affirm this on appeal. Odd, bc usually the loser looks to grounds to appeal, here the winner will be looking for grounds to have it affirmed. Someone below your post and above this one mentioned mandatory sentencing. Yes, that handcuffs a judge, which is why the prosecutor’s judgment and discrtetion is all the more important in not filing the charge to the hilt. Or, which was more typically my practice, you do charge it to the greatest extent and reduce it later once it becomes apparent that it merits a discretionary reduction of the charge, as oftentimes the mitigating information is not fully available at the time of the charge. It’s really no difference in the end (whether reduced for a plea or originally charged with a lesser crime) bc with proper judgment he in the end gets the lesser charge.

And yes, I was wondering about a pardon or clemency. A pardon probably isn’t appropriate here bc that absolves someone of the act, while clemency may be a better fit bc it ends the sentence early on a mercy-like issue, and he maintains the criminal record. I don’t think he ever should have gotten a felony, but it was a valid charge, so I don’t see it getting tossed on a pardon or habeas corpus, but a sentence conversion under clemency would work.

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Yes, clemency is a better word than pardon.

That assumes the governor has that power, which the poster above indicates he may not.

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Or, which was more typically my practice, you do charge it to the greatest extent and reduce it later once it becomes apparent that it merits a discretionary reduction of the charge, as oftentimes the mitigating information is not fully available at the time of the charge. It’s really no difference in the end (whether reduced for a plea or originally charged with a lesser crime) bc with proper judgment he in the end gets the lesser charge.

I think I remember reading about this case last year in the Atlanta paper. Apparently he didn’t take the reduced sentence that the other defendants did because he would be stuck with the registered sex offender deal and would not be allowed around his younger sister until she is an adult, OSTTE. The DA pressed for the full sentence when he passed on the plea bargain.

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Shit, my whole high basketball team would have been locked up if we grew up in Georgia!

This is a sign of how fucked up our justice system can get.

Who are these people appealing to keep him in prison?

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I have two seperate friends with recent experience with prosecutors regarding minor offenses involving their teenage sons. In both cases the prosecutor filed irresponsibly serious charges that were not supported by any of the facts or evidence. They were obviously doing this in order to force a plea bargain, and they were successful in both cases.

I hate to take shots at the guys on the front line, but I thought this approach was flatly unethical in both cases.

I guess they have to move their cases somehow, but justice is not always the result. Not many can defend against irresponsible charges like in the Duke non rape case. I am not saying this case compares to that, but I am just saying I am disgusted by irresponsible prosecutions.

Just because the prosecutor can appeal this decision, doesn’t mean he has to. He should stop digging and just let it go.

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Seriously? You guys had parties where you guys got high, got drunk and then got blown in a group by a 15 year old girl seriatum all on videotape?

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I feel for the young man and agree that this was a big mistake, but the story will make GREAT dinner conversation every time my daughter decides it’s a neat idea to date someone inappropriately old.

~Matt

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It’s not the prosecutor’s fault. It’s a ridiculous law.

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I agree it is pretty silly to have oral sex be a much more serious charge than intercourse, but I am pretty sure both would be serious felonies here in FL. GA law is more lenient as I see it.

This would have been a good noncall after scaring the hell out of the kids and their parents.

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“This would have been a good noncall after scaring the hell out of the kids and their parents.”

It was too late for that. Kids get hotel room, and get drunk. 17 and 15 yr old girls join in, and they all videotape everything that went on. 17 wakes up embarrassed and cries rape. Prosecutors bring all the charges they can against the perps, which includes this oral sex law. Oral sex law is exactly like a statutory rape law, if you fit within the strict age parameters, you have committed a crime regardless of consent (since the girl was not of age to consent anyway). Now, 17 year old sees what she has wrought, and tells truth, no rape. Problem is, prosecutors (and the media) now know about the videotape and have unrefutable evidence that one of the 2 charges is true, that of the oral sex with a minor. At that point, regardless of how silly the law may seem in this case, I don’t think the prosecutor could have dismissed it, he can’t just look the other way when he knows a crime has without question been committed, regardless of how inane the law may seem. He is bound to uphold that law. He tried to plea the kid out, and the kid wanted to fight it.

This is different than having the option of say, believing someone acted in self-defense and refusing to prosecute for murder or manslaughter, for example. This was a bright line law, like statutory rape. The law itself doesn’t provide any exceptions or gray areas or defenses within which the prosecutor can use discretion.

Would people be as up in arms if the kid was 18 when she performed it on him? 19? 20? 21? What if the girl was 14? 13? When do you enforce it and when do you not?

I agree it is a ridiculous penalty.

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You make all good points.

I still say this is what the governors pardon/clemency power is all about. Sometimes you follow all the rules and get an upside down result. That is when executive adult supervision is required.

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Why is it enforced against him and not her? He is a minor as well.