Genarlow Wilson's Appeal Case — Jun 6th 2007

By Dakota Smith

One news story being closely watched this week is the appeal case of Georgia resident Genarlow Wilson. Now 21, Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in jail for having consensual oral sex during a New Year's Eve party. At the time, Wilson was 17 and his female partner was 15. Under the Georgia law that convicted Wilson, which has been since modified, oral sex between teens constitutes aggravated child molestation.

Wilson has already spent 27 months in jail, and today his lawyer pleaded for his release. According to an AP dispatch, the attorney "argued that the sentence was 'grossly disproportionate' to the crime. 'We are asking this court to void this sentence. We are asking this court to release Genarlow Wilson,' appeals lawyer B.J. Bernstein said."

To date, media coverage has largely been on Wilson's side. Dateline ABC ran a very pro-Wilson piece entitled "Outrage After Teen Gets 10 Years for Oral Sex With Girl," while numerous newspaper editorials and blog op-eds have called for his freedom.

One of the best pieces of journalism about the story is an Atlanta magazine article that featured interviews with many of the key players in Wilson's original trial. In the story, jury foreman Marie Manigault expresses regrets for sending Wilson to jail.

""It all boils down to the fact that there's the letter of the law and there's the spirit of the law," says Manigault, who claims that she still struggles to make peace with her role in the case, and that she could not sleep for months after the verdict. "Under the letter of the law these young men were guilty, but under the spirit of the law they were not guilty," she says. "Because we were ignorant we sent this child to jail.""

Even the sponsor of the bill even is speaking out against the former law. ''The law was designed to protect kids against really, really bad people doing very bad things,'' said the sponsor, former state Rep. Matt Towery, a Republican, told another writer from the Associated Press.''It was never intended to put kids in jail for oral sex.''

That sentiment seems common throughout the blogosphere. A quick search reveals plenty of outrage about the case (official site for Wilson can be found here) including this comment on the Washington Post blog: "In my own personal crusade I have stopped using all Ga. Businesses, I switched from Coke to Pepsi, from UPS to FedEx from CNN to NPR Home Depot to Lowe's," writes one user.

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