Genarlow Wilson was freed from Georgia state prison on Oct. 26 after the Georgia Supreme Court threw out his outrageous sentence. Wilson, a 21-year-old African American, had served almost three years of a 10-year sentence for having consensual sex with a minor.
This legal victory that was only possible because an organized movement of people demanded relentlessly that he be
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Wilson was arrested in 2005 for committing “inappropriate sexual acts” at a News Year’s Eve party near Atlanta. A jury acquitted him of rape, but convicted him of aggravated child molestation for a voluntary act of oral sex with another teenager, a felony. He was 17; she was 15. Georgia’s age of consent is 16.
In addition to the harsh sentence, the charge carried one year of probation and the lifetime label of “child molester” on the state’s sex offender registry.
Wilson received the sentence after refusing a plea bargain. His lawyer, B. J. Bernstein, noted the inequality inherent in the case: “If this had been a young man from a wealthy family of whites I don’t think this 10 year [sentence] would have been there.”
Georgia legislators passed a bill in 2006 making oral sex with a minor a misdemeanor. But the law was not retroactive—it did not apply to Wilson’s case. The Georgia Supreme Court’s recent decision, however, ruled the punishment exceedingly harsh. Wilson’s felony was reduced to a misdemeanor and he will not have to register as a sex offender.
Wilson’s case, like the Jena 6, is another reminder that racism is very much alive in the U.S. “justice” system. It also shows that a movement can prevail if it is strong enough.
