There's an online petition objecting to the treatment of Genarlow Wilson by the state of Georgia. Why? Because while petitions may be effectively useless, it's all we've got, and through a stunning showing of incompetence and a pronounced lack of human decency (tinged with racial overtones) on the part the Georgia legislature, the Douglas County District Attorney, and the Georgia judiciary, Genarlow Wilson is being punished. And punished some more. He is a felon, for committing a misdemeanor--a misdemeanor which shouldn't even be that, but for codified puritanical nonsense.
The New York Times wants Genarlow Wilson freed NOW. I agree with the newspaper.
ESPN, of all media outlets, has good coverage of the story:
He's 20 now. Just two years into a 10-year sentence without possibility of parole, he peers through the thick glass and bars, trying to catch a glimpse of freedom. Outside, guard towers and rolls of coiled barbed wire remind him of who he is.
* * *
Once, he was the homecoming king at Douglas County High. Now he's Georgia inmate No. 1187055, convicted of aggravated child molestation.
When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.
Afterward, the state legislature changed the law to include an oral sex clause, but * * * the law was written to not apply to cases retroactively, though another legislative solution might be in the works. The case has drawn national condemnation, from the "Free Genarlow Wilson Now" editorial in The New York Times to a feature on Mark Cuban's HDNet.
"It's disgusting," Cuban wrote to ESPN in an e-mail. "I can not see any way, shape or form that the interests of the state of Georgia are served by throwing away Genarlow's youth and opportunity to become a vibrant contributor to the state. All his situation does is reinforce some unfortunate stereotypes that the state is backward and misgoverned. No one with a conscience can look at this case and conclude that justice has been served."
* * *
The image of a bright future dimming with each passing day is what infuriates so many people. Wilson should be held up as an example of a kid who was making it. His life should be protected by society, not destroyed. He was a good student, with a 3.2 grade point average. He was popular, the school's homecoming king, liked by students and teachers. He never got into any trouble with the law. He was a track and football star. His last two years, he was the defensive back assigned to cover Calvin Johnson, the former Sandy Creek High star who went on to Georgia Tech and is now projected as a top pick in the NFL draft. Wilson studied film, trying to figure out how to outsmart a better and taller athlete. He did well, coaches remember, limiting Johnson to four catches in two games.
* * *
From drinking to smoking pot to acting like a cocky star athlete, Wilson now cringes at some of the mistakes he made in high school.He admits he wasn't perfect. Far from it. He drank. He smoked pot. He'd been sexually active since he was 13. And a month or so after that final playoff game, he and some buddies were plotting a New Year's Eve bash. His mama heard them whispering in his bedroom that afternoon. She knew kids whispering usually meant trouble, so she went in and looked those boys up and down.
"Don't do anything stupid," she warned.
* * *
On tape, the cops saw a 15-year-old girl, a 10th-grader, performing oral sex on a partygoer and, after finishing with him, turning and performing the act on Genarlow. She was the instigator, according to her mother's testimony. Problem was, the girl was a year under the age of consent. Local prosecutors called the act aggravated child molestation, following the letter and not the spirit of the law, which was designed to prosecute pedophiles.
A week later, on the first day of the second semester of his senior year, the police went to the school and arrested the boys. Wilson was charged with four felonies and taken from the building in handcuffs. Not long before, he'd been in the newspaper for being all-conference in football. Now, he was on the front page, branded a rapist and child molester.
* * *
For the next eight months, Douglas County District Attorney David McDade, who likes to wear an American flag on his lapel and play to his law-and-order-loving base, dangled plea bargains. The other boys didn't want to risk a jury, and one by one each took an offer and went to prison, including the other football player arrested, Narada Williams, who accepted five years with the possibility of parole.
In Douglas County, according to law professors following the case, admitting sins and begging forgiveness -- not insisting on your innocence -- is the road to mercy. Williams is already out of jail, in part because McDade wrote a letter to the parole board, praising Williams for being the first to plead guilty and "take his medicine." As for Wilson, McDade called him a "martyr" in the media.
* * *
He looked at the forewoman. She was crying, seeming to understand they'd just undone a promising future. Indeed, when the jurors found out there was a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence, several were incensed. The prosecution told them to write a letter, then moved on to the next case.
Genarlow Wilson put his head in his hands and wept.
Deputies yanked him from his seat. Not long after, Prisoner 1187055 found himself in the predawn darkness, riding in a bus, surrounded not by his teammates but by murderers, thieves and rapists. Some were headed to the penitentiary for the second or third time.
A scared kid looked out the window as the bus chewed up pavement. He didn't know what it was going to be like, only that he didn't want to go.
* * *
These walls and bars haven't taken his youth, though. Not yet. When he smiles, it's the same one from that old photo on his mom's mantel. Bennett wonders how her son has managed to keep that light in such a dark place and how much longer he can hold out.
With nothing but time, he has taken stock of his old life. He doesn't like the person he was back then, the cocky star athlete with the world as his yo-yo. When he thinks about the kid on that videotape, with a Pittsburgh Pirates hat cocked just so, he cringes.
"It's embarrassing to me," he says. "You see yourself. ... 'Man, I acted like that?' "
He has followed his appeals from behind bars. He watched as the state legislature changed the law that put him there, then declined to make it retroactive, for reasons that still boggle the mind. That was a dark day.
He watched as B.J. Bernstein, his new attorney, filed a petition for writ of certiorari, asking the Georgia Supreme Court to review the case. The petition was denied, then set aside, then denied again, then appealed, then denied again. Those were darker days.
The first time the Supreme Court voted on Genarlow's case, it was 4-3. The four judges who voted against the black teen were white. The three judges who voted for him were black.
"I don't understand the Supreme Court," Bennett says. "Do these people not have hearts? Can they not look and see this isn't right?"
In its written decision, the Supreme Court called Wilson a "promising young man," a paragraph that he has read a thousand times. All the e-mails Bernstein gets in support of him, he has those, too. He reads them over and over, reminding himself that he once had a future and, one day, might have it again. It's not easy.
* * *
In Atlanta, Bernstein makes her rounds at the state capitol. It's the first day of the legislative session and men in power ties click their wingtips over marble floors, lobbyists back-slapping each other in their little groups.
"He's sitting in jail," she says. "He's in jail every day they're sitting around chatting."
When Bernstein met Wilson, who had a different attorney for the trial, she saw that light in his eyes and didn't want prison to extinguish it. Truth is, she's a rescuer. One of her cats she found on the interstate. She stopped her car in the rain on a six-lane highway to save it. In her heart, she wants to save the world, starting with Genarlow Wilson. That means working pro bono, even as every small check the firm earns goes straight into the operating account. That means figuring out this strange power-brokers' dance.
It's frustrating work. No one involved believes Wilson should be in jail for 10 years.
The prosecutors don't.
The Supreme Court doesn't.
The legislature doesn't.
The 15-year-old "victim" doesn't.
The forewoman of the jury doesn't.
Privately, even prison officials don't.
Yet no one will do anything to free him, passing responsibility around like a hot potato. The prosecutors say they were just doing their job. The Supreme Court says it couldn't free him because the state legislature decreed the new law didn't apply to old cases, even though this case was the entire reason the new law was passed. One possible explanation is that Bernstein, an admitted neophyte at backroom dealing, simply didn't know enough politics to insist on the provision. That haunts her.
As an honor student, football star and homecoming king, Wilson conquered challenges in high school ... but he now faces an uncertain future.The legislature still could pass a new law that would secure Wilson's freedom, so Bernstein is pushing hard for that. One such bipartisan bill was introduced this week, pushed by state Sens. Emanuel Jones, Dan Weber and Kasim Reed. This is Wilson's best shot.
"I understand the injustice in the justice system," Jones says, "and when I heard about Genarlow and started studying what had happened, I said, 'This is a wrong that must be righted.' Everyone agrees that justice is not being served."
Afterward, Bernstein can file a writ of habeas corpus, which could get him out of jail, but those are legal Hail Marys. She's a true believer, but if the legislature denies this latest attempt, she knows she might not be able to save Genarlow Wilson. * * *
Every story needs a villain, and in this one, the villain's hat has been placed squarely on the head of Barker, the prosecutor and a former college baseball player. Barker doesn't write the laws in the books to the left of his desk. He simply punishes those who break them.
"We didn't want him to get the 10 years," he says. "We understand there's an element out there scratching their heads, saying, 'How does a kid get 10 years under these facts?' "
* * *
Barker is quick to point out that he offered Wilson a plea after he'd been found guilty -- the first time he has ever done that. Of course, the plea was the same five years he'd offered before the trial -- not taking into account the rape acquittal. Barker thinks five years is fair for receiving oral sex from a schoolmate. None of the other defendants insisted on a jury trial. Wilson did. He rolled the dice, and he lost. The others, he says, "took their medicine."
While Bernstein works on every possible legal solution, the Douglas County District Attorney's Office has the power to get Wilson out of prison. If the prosecution wanted, this could all end tomorrow. The D.A.'s office says Bernstein hasn't asked. Bernstein says she has. Not that any legal he said/she said matters. Only the prosecutors' opinion does, and according to at least one legal expert, prosecutorial ego is more of a factor in this case than race. The folks in Douglas County are playing god with Genarlow Wilson's life.
"We can set aside his sentence," Barker says. "Legally, it's still possible for us to set aside his sentence and give him a new sentence to a lesser charge. But it's up to us. He has no control over it."
The position of Barker and the district attorney, McDade, who refused to comment, is that Wilson is guilty under the law and there is no room for mercy, though the facts seem to say they simply chose not to give it to Wilson. At the same time this trial was under way, a local high school teacher, a white female, was found guilty of having a sexual relationship with a student -- a true case of child molestation. The teacher received 90 days. Wilson received 3,650 days.
Now, if Wilson wants a shot at getting out, he must throw himself at the prosecutors' feet and ask for mercy, which he might or might not receive. Joseph Heller would love this. If Wilson would only admit to being a child molester, he could stop receiving the punishment of one. Maybe.
* * *
Back at Burruss, Genarlow Wilson is standing against the wall, looking out through the glass of the control room, peering between the bars, watching his attorney and another visitor leave. He has had plenty of people who want to talk to him, including a group of concerned legislators who plan on visiting this week, which finally feels like a real step toward freedom. Problem is, they always go home after an hour or two. He stays behind.
I don't know how I missed this story until now, but... wow. Just... wow. Here's a crazy idea, people-in-Georgia-who-actually-have-power: stop passing the buck, stop making yourselves look bad, and fix this. NOW.
The District Attorney had no say in the matter... except for a little thing called prosecutorial discretion.
The legislature screwed up when drafting the original law. Then it screwed up when drafting the law to fix the mess it had created. The governor, of course, could pardon Wilson--except that the legislature stripped the governor of that power.
And let's not forget the judiciary. All the words I want to use are unprintable. So I'll stick with those I used in the first paragraph: incompetent; lacking in human decency; racially biased.
Hi,
I had visited your blog before. Came across from Confused's blog. This post moved me. Great work! Your blog's a very well-written one. I hope I can add you to my blogroll and link to you some time.
Thanks!
Posted by: Lotus Eyes | February 04, 2007 at 04:49 PM
Lotus Eyes:
Thanks for visiting - and please feel free to link if something is of interest to you.
This post was written by Joe. I am taking the liberty to reply. Not sure if Joe has been visiting the blog regularly.
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | February 04, 2007 at 06:45 PM