Georgia man goes free in consensual-sex case
FORSYTH, Ga. - Genarlow Wilson - the young man imprisoned for committing a consensual sex act who became, for many, an example of inequitable criminal justice - was released from prison Friday after his conviction was overturned by Georgia’s Supreme Court.
In 2005, Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. He was sentenced to 10 years with no possibility of parole, the mandatory minimum under Georgia law at the time.
But the state’s Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, found that the sentence amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.” And Wilson - a former high-school honor student and football star - walked free from Al Burruss Correctional Training Center on Friday afternoon after 32 months behind bars, calm and relieved.
Wilson, now 21, is black and, like the recent case of six black youths charged in a beating incident in Jena, La., his ordeal became a celebrated cause for civil-rights activists and others who say local justice systems still discriminate against people of color.
Wilson’s case also highlighted the increasingly strict sex-offender laws that have become common in Georgia and other states. If his conviction had been upheld, Wilson would have had to register as a sex offender upon his release. Georgia law would have prevented him from living or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, parks, churches, swimming pools or school-bus stops.
Several young Georgia residents who have committed crimes similar to Wilson’s live under such restrictions. Wilson’s release gave hope to critics of such laws that legislators will be more careful about sex-crime laws they enact.
“We may be seeing at least a pause before politicians rush in to exploit sexual abuse for political gain,” said Lisa Kung, director of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, which is representing Georgia’s sex offenders in the federal lawsuit.
Wilson’s attorney, B.J. Bernstein, said teenagers and parents often are unaware that sex laws vary.
“This is an awakening of parents everywhere. Have a conversation with your teenager,” she said. “Dangerous sex predators are out there. Those are the people who should be subjected to harsh laws, not Genarlow Wilson.”
The Georgia Supreme Court technically upheld an earlier decision by a lower court that found Wilson’s prison sentence was cruel and unusual, and illegal under the state and federal constitutions.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears said the Georgia Legislature had altered the law in 2006 to make conduct like Wilson’s a misdemeanor that would not require registry as a sex offender. Sears said that represented a “seismic shift in the legislature’s view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing participants.”
She added that Wilson’s crime “does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of 10 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.”