Genarlow Wilson free!
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by Suckatsports
Sitting in class I see the following headline on CNN:
"The Supreme Court of Georgia has ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, imprisoned as a teen-ager in a consensual-sex case."
This is so new that his website: http://www.wilsonappeal.com/ doesn't have it up yet.
The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled 4-3 that his punishment was cruel and unusual. Now I'm not so sure about whether the legal argument for it is legit. However, I often argue in law school that we should sometimes use common sense rather than old laws that clearly provide a bad result. I think this was a situation where the SC of Georgia said "Screw it, this is ridiculous, let's find a way to make it work."
I can't wait to get my hands on that ruling (it's a 48 page PDF, read at your own risk). We will be talking about this in the future.
As you can see here I have previously written about the horrible situation Wilson was put in.
Earlier this year a county judge ruled the punishment cruel and unusual and reduced the sentence to one year and no sex offender registry. That was a great day for Wilson, however the Attorney General said he was going to appeal and Genarlow was back in prison.
We can only imagine how happy the Wilson family is today.
I also hope that Jesse Jackson or Rev. Al Sharpton will toss a college scholarship his way the way Jackson offered one to the Duke Non-Rape Scandal "victim".
This news is even better than when I found out his attorney's name was B.J. (I couldn't make that up if I tried)
I have to say some of the reasoning for the opinion sounds familiar:
"Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children" Majority Opinion
"Wilson was in jail based on a law meant to protect high school kids from old men. Not from classmates." DetroitSportsCity June 16, 2007
Let us all join in a standing slow clap for Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and the other 3 Justices who ruled in Genarlow's favor
Court orders youth freed in consensual sex case [MSNBC]
This post is cross-published from We Suck at Sports.
