Articles

Day of split outcomes in teenage sex case

By Brenda Goodman
New York Times
June 12, 2007

ATLANTA, June 11 - A judge on Monday ordered the release of a man who is serving a widely criticized 10-year prison sentence without parole for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

But just after the ruling was announced, Georgia's attorney general, Thurbert E. Baker, said he was appealing it, and the prisoner, Genarlow Wilson, remained behind bars.

In ordering the release of Mr. Wilson, who has already served more than two years, the judge threw out the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years that he had received for his felony conviction, amending it to 12 months for misdemeanor aggravated child molestation, with credit for time served.

Attorney General Baker appealed on the ground that a judge ruling on a habeas petition, as in this case, had no authority to modify a sentence imposed by the trial court. He said he would ask the Georgia Supreme Court to expedite a ruling.

A spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, Yolanda Thompson, said Mr. Wilson, now 21, would not be freed until the department received "further guidance" from Mr. Baker or from the trial court.

Mr. Wilson's lawyer, B. J. Bernstein, said she would file an application for bond in an effort to have him released pending the outcome of the appeal.

The case of Mr. Wilson, a former high school honors student and star athlete, has long been a subject of national attention, with former President Jimmy Carter among a large number of influential people who have supported his appeals.

In her petition to the court, Ms. Bernstein argued that Mr. Wilson had been subjected to "cruel and unusual punishment" by imposition of a sentence meant to apply to adult sexual predators. Publicity surrounding the case led state lawmakers last year to close a loophole that led to the 10-year term, but they declined to apply the new law retroactively.

In his ruling on Monday, Judge Thomas H. Wilson, the chief judge of the Towaliga Judicial Circuit, said it would be a "grave miscarriage of justice" for Mr. Wilson (no relation) to have to serve the remaining eight years of his sentence.

"If this court, or any court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here," the judge wrote, "then our court system has lost sight of the goal" of "justice being served in a fair and equal manner."

In amending the sentence to 12 months, the judge also said that Mr. Wilson, contrary to the requirements of the minimum sentence for his felony conviction, would not be required to register as a sex offender.

The day of legal ups and downs for Mr. Wilson began with a gathering by a small group of his supporters at Ms. Bernstein's office here. They watched in silence as the judge's ruling came over the fax machine just before noon. The last page was the order for Mr. Wilson's release.

Ms. Bernstein stared at it for a moment, stunned, then grabbed the hand of Mr. Wilson's mother, Juannessa Bennett, who appeared to be equally surprised by the news. Both women ran toward reporters and a bank of cameras. "He's released!" Ms. Bernstein yelled, while Ms. Bennett, in a voice barely above a whisper, said, "I just feel like a miracle happened."

In an interview a few minutes later, Ms. Bernstein said: "This is extraordinary. It says a lot for country justice that there is some common sense. Everybody else has been looking at this from a political point of view. Everyone wants to look like they're tough on crime."

But the elation at her office was short-lived. Moments later, Ms. Bernstein learned of the appeal by the attorney general, who said in a statement, "The law in Georgia is clear that while a habeas court may grant habeas relief, there is absolutely no authority for a habeas court to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court."

Ms. Bernstein said she found it "extremely, extremely disturbing that the attorney general would take this action now," adding, "There is nothing right about this."

It was in 2005 that a jury found Mr. Wilson guilty of a felony for having received consensual oral sex from a 15-year-old girl at a drug- and alcohol-fueled New Year's Eve party two years earlier.

Under a "Romeo and Juliet" provision in the law, Mr. Wilson would have been guilty of only a misdemeanor had the act been intercourse. But no one had thought to include oral sex in that exception when the law was enacted, and after the trial, jurors said they had been unaware of the 10-year minimum for the felony.

Largely because of Mr. Wilson's case, the Georgia General Assembly, the state's legislature, closed the loophole in 2006 to define most offenses involving consensual sex acts between teenagers as nothing more than misdemeanors.

But like the legislature, the courts have denied several bids by Mr. Wilson to have the new legal standard applied to his case. And he has refused to take a standing plea deal, offered by the district attorney who prosecuted him, that would reduce his sentence but require him to register as a sex offender.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company. More information: www.nytimes.com.

To make a comment on the Faith And The City weblog, click here.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information, visit: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.