Comments on Genarlow Wilson
The poor bastard still lost two years of his life. He was in the clink when most of his peers was doing beer bong hits. I can't imagine what that would do so some kids personality.
I bet he's bitter as HELL. I would be. Serves his parents right for living in a backwards state.
serves his parents right? you mean by this child being damaged goods and having a limited future due to his jail time?
this kid had potential to make good on his opportunities and abilities and now that time has passed. Serves his parents right?
How many situations could I invoke where someone is victimized by the state, and it could be looked as "serves em right for living there"?
dozens.
The Georgia AG just blocked the release with a last minute appeal...
He was hardly a child. Can we declare an end to calling teenagers children when it suits our purposes -- to make them out to be more innocent and helpless than they are?
He was also charged with raping a girl at that party. He was acquitted of that charge because Georgia statute doesn't recognize fucking a girl who's passed out due to alcohol as rape. The prosecution tacked on the blow job charge to ensure a conviction.
Of course, the solution should be for Georgia to change their antiquated rape statutes, not to sentencing a teenager to ten years for doing something that's a misdemeanor in civilized society.
Omigod! It's just because he is a rich celebrity that they handed him such a harsh sentence.
It's, like, so totally unfair.
(he IS a rich celebrity, isn't he? I mean, didn't he totally date Brit or somebody? I need my meds. They won't give me my meds.)
Bellevue Ave... calm down. My bad. Obviously the state, not the parents, are at fault here. It's just my illogical prejudices against the South, star athletes, and honor students showing up again.
In an era where it seems that anyone connected politically can write there own jail sentences (like a dad who lets the child choose the punishment the child thinks will stick), it is great to see that justice will sometimes punish the guilty (P. Hilton) and will sometimes work in favor of the innocent (such as with this).
he wasnt completely innocent but at the same time he had his entire life derailed because of this.
Wow, I can't believe the verdict in this case. The poor guy lost 2 years of his life for something so small. How unfortunate. If you want to talk more about criminal justice cases, discuss with with Richard Esposito on this live interactice chat show at www.paltalk.com/newstalk/resposito_archive.shtml about criminal justice cases. He's a reporter that has done stories on the CIA and has earned awards for his reporting on crime and criminal justice, national security, and investigations of abuses of official authority. Ask him anything and discuss on Tuesday June 12th at 5pm EST! Hope you find the time because I'm positive you'd love it!
Wow, I can't believe the verdict in this case. The poor guy lost 2 years of his life for something so small. How unfortunate. If you want to talk more about criminal justice cases, discuss with with Richard Esposito on this live interactice chat show at www.paltalk.com/newstalk/resposito_archive.shtml about criminal justice cases. He's a reporter that has done stories on the CIA and has earned awards for his reporting on crime and criminal justice, national security, and investigations of abuses of official authority. Ask him anything and discuss on Tuesday June 12th at 5pm EST! Hope you find the time because I'm positive you'd love it!
Georgia: Where being a stupid AG is normal.
I am from the Atlanta area and I am really sick of this being presented as some sort of "lynching" of an innocent black boy. He is an insult to all the African American men of good character in this state. That man had been in trouble before for molesting girls at his school, and, as posted above , raped another girl.
By the way - for all you people who are portraying Georgia as some 1950s racist backwater, the Atlanta city and Fulton County governments are totally liberal. They are run almost entirely by an educated, affluent, influential, minority population. So please spare us the "ignorant white southerner" labels.
I'll bet this guy will probably be in court again on similar charges in the near future.
Maria, I didn't know he was black until YOU brought it up.
he remains behind bars for now due to a last minute appeal.
sorry Brad @ 4 for missing your post until it was too late but I did provide a link.
This isn't over yet. The Georgia Supes still have total control over this kid's freedom. Don't celebrate (or judge) until it's all *truly* said and done.
Wilson is black. Anyone wanna bet that the girl who gave him the blow job was white? That might explain why he got sentenced to ten years in prison.
RE: #5: because Georgia statute doesn't recognize fucking a girl who's passed out due to alcohol as rape
That is incorrect. Georgia Law and Jurisprudence definitely include severe intoxication as a factor preventing the ability to consent.
That said, the jury watched the video of the alleged "rape", and made the determination that the girl was not that intoxicated. Which changed the act from Rape to "Buyers regret"* However, the video also showed the non-drunk 15 year old fellating him. Which was (at the time) a Felony. The legislature saw that as a problem and fixed the law (sort-of: they made it a misdemeanor)
The kid was acquitted of rape, neither a Jury, nor we should suggest he be punished for that via the facade of another crime. That's not how the justice system is supposed to work- You don't get 12 months in county for a faulty blinker because you beat a speeding ticket. You shouldn't get 10 years for a consensual hummer because you beat a rape rap.
*If you want to knee jerk that anybody intoxicated (however slightly) can never consent, Consider the following- Can a Frat boy press charges against the chubby coyote ugly girl? After all, he was drunk, and wouldn't have had sex with her sober. Or, how about the husband who buys his wife champagne to get them in the mood? Is he a rapist too? I'm not trying to make light of a serious issue- Fucking a passed out girl is rape. Fucking a girl so drunk she doesn't know which way is up is Rape. Fucking the girl who had to drink two daiquiri's to get enough courage to hit on you is not rape.
RE: #18-
His sentence was MANDATORY. The Jury says they didn't know that at the time. To be fair, they really didn't have much of a choice- He did put his penis in the mouth of a 15 year old. Those facts meant that he was guilty of the crime charged. The only other option would have been for Jury nullification, which, while their right, is not known to most jurors.
Once the guilty verdict was presented, the Judge had no choice- Sentence was mandatory. Actually, the Judge could have given him 30 years (OCGA 16-6-4), so in essence, he gave him the minimum sentence.
..............the states are really backward......not only the south but all of you. this is just another example of the puritan backward laws and policies you guys have. this is all so silly, if it weren't for this kid being in jail for having a blow job! his life is gonna be fucked up by this incident forever.
I can't believe this case went through and a jury convicted him. that shows some dumb ass people there, really rooting for stupidity.
..............the states are really backward......not only the south but all of you. this is just another example of the puritan backward laws and policies you guys have. this is all so silly, if it weren't for this kid being in jail for having a blow job! his life is gonna be fucked up by this incident forever.
I can't believe this case went through and a jury convicted him. that shows some dumb ass people there, really rooting for stupidity.
I would urge Slog readers to read all the reportage and get your facts straight before you go about judging the accused, the victim or the place of origin of this little legal drama.
The 15 year old who provided the hummer was a contemporary of the convicted boy, and she is black. The boy convicted of the crime is black - I cry bullshit on Katelyn @ 14; it has been common knowledge since the media began reporting this story that this kid is black - and the DA did not pursue the hummer charge simply as an alternative because young Mr. Wilson was acquitted of the rape charge. As Rev. George @ 20 rightfully points out, the kid was sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines. The jury would have been fully informed of and completely aware of said guidelines.
All this unbridled outrage by people who only know half the story!
Rev. George,
Here's Georgia's rape statute. Enjoy.
16-6-1. Rape.(a) A person commits the offense of rape when he has carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Carnal knowledge in rape occurs when there is any penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ.
No mention of alcohol, is there?
Considering that, until recently, rape was punishable by death in Georgia, I guess I can't blame them for having such a limited definition -- speaking of antiquated and uncivilized.
No mention of alcohol, is there?
No mention of roofies or unconsciousness either. However, JURISPRUDENCE has repeatedly held that a person so "out of it" that they are unable to consent qualifies as against her will. Even in GA.(where I live)
RE #23: The jury would have been fully informed of and completely aware of said guidelines.
Not necessarily. The Jury need only be told what the facts of law are. Some judges avoid mentioning potential punishments to help stave off jury nullification. In fact, it appears that they were not told of the ramifications until after the fact-
From: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/article.php?id=158
"The jury filed into the back room where they had deliberated for about five hours earlier that day. It was not until then, says Manigault, that attorney Michael Mann told them that their verdict meant a mandatory 10-year sentence for Genarlow. The room exploded. “People were screaming, crying, beating against the walls,” she recalls. “I just went limp. They had to help me to a chair.” "
the damage is done to this kid. The obvious consequence of charging him and putting him through all this has been ignored by supposedly responsible people in authority. He is the victim bad laws and the people that sentenced him. Maybe he will get over it but I think he is going to always have some reservations regarding having sex again. The court was so cruel to have done this. He may as well have been sentenced by a machine that carried out the law as written. There was every possibility to humanly look at this situation and make an exception and rewrite the law instead of acting without any sense of compassion and understanding of the damage that could be done to him.
It is interesting how laws can be so different from one area to another. Here in Vancouver a police officer just had his charge of having sex with a 14 yr. old girl thrown out of court. He met her online and knew she was 14 and the judge said he did nothing wrong. He is a free man. But this kid is thrown in jail.
These kinds of statutory rape laws are ridiculous to begin with.
I see this case as one of a cluster that came out of a 2002-2004 field day that prosecutors had on teens in trouble. There were similar cases that played out in Orange County, California (Greg Haidl, et al) and Cook County, Illinois (Adrian Missbrenner, et al). In general the cases involved drunk minor women who had sex with guys who were minors and the acts were taped with the knowledge of the women and, apparently at least to the extent of their drunkeness, their consent.
These are crimes but it seems extreme to pursue them as felonies and label the minor participants as sex offenders for life. In another time it would be easier to just pursue these as juvenile cases or send the kids / young adults into counseling. It would seem to be better for the women, anyway, are they really better off for going through the disruption of their lives that these trials cause them?
I think though that in a lot of cases the parents of the young women, much less the young women victims, don't really have a choice in the matter. Look at the Genarlow Wilson case:
Mom in Teen Sex Case Defends Convict
AP
Thursday, June 14, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/14/national/a061824D70.DTL
"In the initial interview on Tuesday, the mother told the newspaper that before Wilson's trial, Barker had told her that if she didn't assist the prosecution, she could face legal trouble for "neglect" as a parent. Barker denied that assertion, the newspaper said.
On Wednesday, the mother said that Barker had not been "threatening" her but rather giving her advice."
I wonder in how many other cases from 2002-2004 or so, in particular the Orange and Cook County cases did parents get "advice" that they might face neglect allegations if they didn't support prosectors pursuing rape charges, in the name of supposely protecting and defending their daughters?
Right.
The same logic is behind so-called pro-life laws that make it a crime for a minor 16 or 17 year old woman to get an abortion without parental consent, which is the law in a lot of states. The idea isn't to help minors make decisions in difficult cases, most get adequate information from doctors, clinics, counselors, etc, nor is it to get parents involved, as most minors tell their parents if they have a good rapport.
The idea is to make it very difficult for minors to get abortions, and if they do, to have to work with a lawyer, a counselor, a social worker, etc, etc, running up hundreds of dollars an hour in legal fees and thousands of dollars an hour in court costs. I know, the attorneys in these cases get paid relatively little compared to others -- they're often fresh out of law school and representing their clients with the best of intentions -- but it's created a self-sustaining bureaucracy which hardly can be expected to speak up and say it shouldn't even exist in the first place.
The minor doesn't pay the legal fees, either taxpayers do or in some cases the clinics or private funding sources do. Laws like these are not opposed much when antichoice groups try to pass these laws in part because many adults approve of the idea of parental consent laws, but also because there's a growing legal / social service bureaucracy that makes money off of it and actively supports it (and doesn't actively work to have it abolished).
Free Genarlow Wilson! And let him get his life back.
He never should have spent one day in jail!
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