Genarlow Wilson -- Georgia is insane

ALawPoker · #1 10-26-2007, 03:23 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/26...ef=mpstoryview

This story is bizarre. Basically, someone was sentenced to TEN YEARS of prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old when he was 17.

???

Is that even illegal? Apparently so, and Georgia has recently changed this sort of conduct between consenting minors to a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Whew, what a concession, I'm glad it is only mildly illegal for high schoolers to give each other head. It's good that minors often will not be charged for murder, but could face TEN YEARS for sexual relations with someone two years younger than them.

This just blows my mind. It's only one example, and [censored] happens, but if this isn't good evidence that a state monopoly on justice is really, really bad, then I don't know what is. Show me a private arbitrator who decides that the 17-year-old owes the 15-year-old something equal to 10 years of prison and I will show you a private arbitrator that goes out of business fast. It just couldn't happen. It's the type of injustice that would be totally inconceivable if state bureaucracy was not in charge.

I mean, when I heard the story in the background playing on CNN, I first thought he was an adult who had consensual relations with a 15-year-old, and I was like "hmm, ya, 10 years is ridiculous, it's good that they overturned that." I assumed it was some sort of reasonable debate, and still thought it was newsworthy. But then the fact that HE WAS SEVENTEEN and it was a two year difference just makes this impressively ridiculous. This could easily be a high school junior getting head from a sophomore, if that puts it in the correct perspective. TEN YEARS IN PRISON!

Obviously the fact that he's black is why this happened. But the point is this happened to a human being in the United States of America in 2005. Isn't that [censored] scary?

Government does not work. I used to think it was at least good for the sake of a clear authority, but I came to my senses on that, and examples like this are just empirical icing on the cake.

iron81 · #2 10-26-2007, 03:28 PM

Here's a Sport Forum thread and an OOT thread about this.

ALawPoker · #3 10-26-2007, 03:38 PM

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Here's a Sport Forum thread and an OOT thread about this.

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Oops, sorry. I didn't realize this was already being talked about. We might get a different sort of discussion here anyways.

pvn · #4 10-26-2007, 03:39 PM

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Obviously the fact that he's black is why this happened.

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That can't be right. I've been informed hundreds of times by posters here that government *prevents* racism and *punishes* racists.

owsley · #5 10-26-2007, 03:39 PM

Sometimes it just sucks to be black in this country. Just really really sucks. Well if Genarlow Wilson didn't like the state, he should have loved it or left it!

TomCollins · #6 10-26-2007, 03:44 PM

Was the chick white?

AngusThermopyle · #7 10-26-2007, 03:46 PM

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Was the chick white?

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No. Neither was the other chick that he was charged (but found not guilty) with raping. Not consensual sex. Rape.

MiloMinderbinder · #8 10-26-2007, 03:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
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Obviously the fact that he's black is why this happened.

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That can't be right. I've been informed hundreds of times by posters here that government *prevents* racism and *punishes* racists.

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pvn, this is intellectual dishonesty. You know damn well that because some govt tries to avoid X does not mean that X never happens anywhere, and you know that X still happens even without govt. Deleted

Thug Bubbles · #9 10-26-2007, 03:53 PM

Aside from the ass-backwards law and the fevered prosecutor, the real oddity is why the law wasn't allowed to be retroactively applied to the case which spurred the laws creation.

RedBean · #10 10-26-2007, 03:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
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Was the chick white?

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No. Neither was the other chick that he was charged (but found not guilty) with raping. Not consensual sex. Rape.

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But he was found not guilty on that count, right?

And didn't he and his friends videotape all of this and it was shown to the court? That's probably going to get you an inflammatory conviction and sentence in the Bible belt by itself, I don't care what color your are.....

I haven't looked at the details of this case in ages, but if I remember, while the consentual oral got an outlandish penalty.....I couldn't figure out how he got off on the rape count when the video shows him screwing a girl while shes practically knocked out unconscious and unable to consent.

I think the 10-year sentence was the judge's version of a "make right" for the jury's inability to convict on the rape charge.

Regardless, no one has mentioned in this thread yet that his release has been ordered and he'll end up having served about 2 years for all of it.