Teenager received 10 year sentence for oral sex with girl two years younger
Sometimes I think Finland’s judicial system is so backwards, but then I’m brought back down to Earth when I read a story like this - Finland ain’t nuttin’ compared to how insane and racist the U.S.’s judicial system is - A 17-kid had consenting oral sex with a 15-year old, and went to jail for 10 years, finally he’s being freed after three years…
A man given 10 years in jail for consensual oral sex with a teenager has been freed after a US court ruled the punishment was cruel and unusual. [...]Wilson, a former high school honours student and star athlete now aged 21, was found guilty by a jury of aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party in 2003.
At the time, the crime carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and lifetime registration on the state’s sexual offender list. But if Wilson had had sexual intercourse with the girl he would have only been charged with misdemeanour and received a much lighter sentence.
Hat Tip to Helsinkian for the link!
He was released.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/10/26/genarlow_1026.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab
Comment by Bemmu — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 9:11 am
I read about this case a few months ago. As I recall he was also an honor student with very bright prospects. I wonder how he will do now, after three years in the slammer with hardened criminals, and with a criminal record as a convicted sex offender
Maybe he should have argued the Clinton defence - that oral sex isn’t really sex!
Comment by Kimmo W. — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 10:12 am
I find the ending of that story - “Everybody laughed” - a bit forced. Like “three years in jail and it was all worth it because now I can make this punchline”. The story was that of tragedy, but it was somehow written as feel-good story.
Comment by Juho Salo — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 10:45 am
Kimmo, apparently any “sex offender” label will not follow him throughout life, it is part of the deal.
Comment by Dave the Revelator — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
I guess somebody could sell “In the U.S. I would be sitting in jail for 10 years” - T-shirts to lukio/amis 2nd graders hanging out with yläaste pississies in hopes of easy ‘ginger cookie’.
Comment by Antti rn — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
Now you guys have homeland security, detention camps with “guilty until proven innocent” detainees, outsourced torture camps, border nazis, fucked up justice system, largest prison population in the word, president who doesn’t give shit about human rights and Congress and Senate doing nothing to prevent all this. It sure looks like at least flirting with fascism.
From They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer:
“Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures” that no “patriotic German” could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing…
Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow.”
Comment by tim73 — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
#4 I stand corrected, and relieved for the guy’s sake.
Comment by Kimmo W. — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
This guy would never have been charged with a crime if the girl were black.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 5:12 pm
tim, I get your point but I think you can find a better version of fascism than this case, as it is a reversal of an extraordinarily harsh sentence.
Comment by Dave the Revelator — Tue, Oct 30th, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
This guy would never have been charged with a crime if the girl were black.
Nothing would have happened if the participants on both sides were not black.
/cue Georgian accent
“Oh… just some kids having some party fun is all. We know what it’s like. We used to be kids.”
Comment by gopha — Wed, Oct 31st, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
Kimmo, the original problem was that oral sex was understood exactly as something far more worse than sex. That was the aggravating circumstance that he got those ten years for. Had he done it in the missionary position, it would have been judged as a misdemeanor even according to the old law. That’s the major revolution that happened in Georgia, they changed even the law that concerns sex with minors so that oral sex is now understood to be sex. Way back when oral sex was illegal among consenting adults there, while intercourse wasn’t.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 2nd, 2007 @ 7:03 pm