Georgia Man Fights Conviction as Molester
By SHAILA DEWAN
ATLANTA, Dec. 18 — Genarlow Wilson, 20, is serving a prison sentence that shocked his jury, elicited charges of racism from critics of the justice system and even acknowledgment by prosecutors and the State Legislature that it is unjust.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison without parole for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party, an offense that constituted aggravated child molesting, even though Mr. Wilson was 17. With Mr. Wilson — a football player, honor student and the first homecoming king at Douglas County High School — nearing two years in prison, the Georgia Supreme Court declined last Friday to hear his appeal.
Mr. Wilson, who is black, is trapped in a legal vise intended to ensure severe penalties for child molesters and other sex offenders, navigating a maze of legal technicalities that for him seems to hold nothing but dead ends. Some critics of the sentence also say Mr. Wilson is caught in a system that metes out disproportionately harsh sentences to black defendants.
Disturbed by Mr. Wilson’s conviction, the Legislature changed the law in March to ensure that most sex between teenagers be treated as a misdemeanor. But the State Supreme Court said legislators had chosen not to make the law retroactive.
“While I am very sympathetic to Wilson’s argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to 10 years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender,” wrote Justice Carol W. Hunstein, “this court is bound by the Legislature’s determination that young persons in Wilson’s situation are not entitled to the misdemeanor treatment.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/us/19georgia.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=e26f669d65b26811&ex=1166677200&pagewanted=print.....see petition at this DU link......
17yr old gets 10 yrs in prison for a bj ...please DU the petition
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2952019&mesg_id=2952019