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From Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, as published in the AJC:
As Attorney General, it is my responsibility to follow the laws of Georgia as they are written, not how some may wish they were written.
Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson's order struck Genarlow Wilson's original sentence, and then purportedly went on to sentence Wilson to a misdemeanor. 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, in this case, the Superior Court of Douglas County.
I have attempted to bring the defense lawyers and Douglas County prosecuting attorneys together in hopes of reaching a resolution. As recently as this past weekend, the Douglas County District Attorney's office offered Wilson's attorneys a plea deal that would have allowed Wilson to plead to first-offender treatment, which would mean he would not have a criminal record nor would be subject to registering on the sex offender registry once his sentence has been completed. The plea deal could also result in him receiving a sentence substantially shorter than the 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for which he was originally sentenced, possibly leading to his release based upon time already served. Wilson, through his attorneys, rejected all of those offers.
From Trey Ellis, of the Huffington Post:
If you were watching CNN this afternoon you saw incredibly compelling television. Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia high-school homecoming king and 3.2 G.P.A. student, sentenced to ten years for receiving consensual oral sex from a fifteen-year-old when he was seventeen, was finally freed by a judge. The Soviet-styled sentencing was overturned after the state of Georgia had already wasted two years of this young man's life.
It seemed that the Kafkaesque nightmare was over and this young black Georgian could finally get on with his life.
Yet moments later Georgia District Attorney Thurbert Baker faxed the celebrating family of young Mr. Wilson that he was appealing the verdict.
As Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson stated in his decision to free Genarlow Wilson, "If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish....If any case fits into the definitive limits of a miscarriage of justice, surely this case does."
It is long past time for this farce to end. We all need to contact Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue tonight and demand that Thurbert Baker be removed from office...
From Maureen Downey at the AJC:
That glitch has since been fixed by the General Assembly, which made the conduct committed by Wilson a mere misdemeanor with a maximum jail term of 12 months.
But Baker argues that Wilson was convicted under the old law and his sentence should stand.
How are the citizens of Georgia helped by making a teenager with no prior record remain in prison for a decade because of a poorly drawn law? How is justice served?
"If this Court, or any Court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... Justice being served in a fair and equal manner," Monroe Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Wilson stated in his plain-spoken ruling.
Baker's decision to appeal that ruling suggests that he has lost any sense of perspective on justice, and in turn may lose his grasp on his job as well.
As the judge noted, Wilson has served two years for what is now a mere misdemeanor; making him serve another eight years "is a grave miscarriage of justice."
From an earlier editorial in the New York Times:
Every day that young Genarlow Wilson remains in prison for consensual sexual activity is a further indictment against the prosecutors, lawmakers and judges of the Georgia legal system. Lawyers for Mr. Wilson have applied for a writ of habeas corpus to challenge his cruel and unusual 10-year sentence. The Superior Court should grant it.
When he was 17, Mr. Wilson received oral sex from a 15-year-old girl. For that, he has served over two years of a strict minimum decade-long prison term. He was convicted of aggravated child molestation, a charge intended for adult sexual predators. If Mr. Wilson had engaged in sexual intercourse with the same girl, it would have been a misdemeanor under an exemption for contact between minors. Oral sex was left out. Legislators have since corrected the unintended trap. If Mr. Wilson engaged in the same action today, it would be a misdemeanor.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles is legally prohibited from granting clemency for this offense. And the State Senate adjourned for the year without taking up a bill that would have allowed judges to review sentences in cases like Mr. Wilson's.
The behavior of the district attorney, David McDade, requires particular scrutiny. He charged Mr. Wilson with raping a different girl at the same party, and a jury acquitted him in 2005. Mr. McDade has distributed a graphic videotape of the events in that case to legislators as part of a lobbying effort at the State Senate against Mr. Wilson's release. And Mr. McDade went on television last month and said, referring to Mr. Wilson and others involved, ''Six young men basically gang-raped a 17-year-old.''
At best, this is irresponsible considering that Mr. Wilson was acquitted of the charge. It demonstrates poor judgment not by a minor, but by an adult who should know better.
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