Tuesday, June 12, 2007

What's In a Name?...or, The Devil Went Down in Georgia

A news story in today's Denver Post made my day:
Georgia judge overturns 10-year teen-sex sentence

Atlanta - A Georgia judge ordered the release Monday of a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, a sentence that had been widely criticized as grossly disproportionate to the crime.

Several influential people, including former President Carter, publicly supported Genarlow Wilson's appeals, and state lawmakers voted to close the loophole that led to his 10-year term....
The poor defendant's lawyer is B.J. Bernstein. You can't make this stuff up.

Update: In the comments, I noted that Wilson must have been caught in the act to have been arrested. According to Wikipedia, the conviction was based on an amateur video tape (EWWW!), and that intercourse with the 15-year-old would have netted him just 5 years, as opposed to the 10 for "aggravated" fellatio. Oh, and he's black. The South rises again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

BJ Bernstein? Well blow me down! That's just great. Did you note the color of the young man's skin? I sure did. Travesty. I'll stay up here Nawth of the Mason Dixon thank you very much.

Bella Stander said...

There was no photo with the article I read, so I didn't think about color. Silly me, I know.

I'm wondering how the poor kid (and he probably was poor; a rich kid would've gotten off long ago) got arrested in the first place. He and his girlfriend had to be caught in the act, right?