Writing for the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, staff writer Maureen Downey expresses outrage here at the appeal taken by the Georgia AG in the case of Genarlow Wilson (pictured above left):
A decade or two ago, few prosecutors would have taken up the cause of a black teenage girl who admitted going to a hotel room with her overnight bag to drink and party with a bunch of boys, and who later cried rape. But to [Douglas Co., Ga District Attorney David] McDade’s credit, he took the claim seriously. He felt sure that a jury would convict because he had a videotape of several sex acts that night, including … [a] 15-year-old girl engaging in oral sex.
The video failed to persuade the jury that the drunken 17-year-old had been incapable of giving consent. But jurors did find that Wilson, then 17, had participated in oral sex with the 15-year-old girl. Because of a glitch in state law, that meant that Wilson was guilty of aggravated child molestation, with a sentence of 10 years in prison and permanent classification as a sexual predator.
Ten years in prison for a consensual sex act between teenagers is clearly excessive. (Wilson has already served two years of that sentence.) The Legislature later recognized that fact, changing the law so that today that same act would be regarded as a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of a year. A Monroe County Superior Court judge reached that conclusion as well this week, ordering Wilson’s release. Attorney General Thurbert Baker has appealed that sensible ruling, and McDade continues to insist that the original conviction was justified.
One Georgia prosecutor defends the actions of the Georgia AG, Thurbert Baker (pictured at right), in this letter to the editors: 
In the hysteria surrounding this case, important facts and principles are buried or overlooked by the media. Like it or not, Wilson committed aggravated child molestation. * * *
While some might argue that the law under which Wilson was convicted has since been changed, the law changed after Wilson committed the offense and was convicted. It is the law in effect at the time the crime is committed that governs.
Others have emphasized that this was a “consensual” act by the victim. As a society, however, we have determined by law that children under 16 years of age lack the maturity to legally consent to sexual acts. * * *
The day we begin to make exceptions for one person is the day we become a nation of men, not of laws. Thanks to an agenda-driven media frenzy, that day may not be far off.
The Georgia prosecutor’s assertion that the Georgia Attorney General has a “sworn duty to appeal the court’s ruling” to reduce the charges against Mr. Wilson and his 10-year sentence overlooks the basic fact that prosecutorial discretion requires those who wield it to exercise judgment, not to make mechanical appeals. In this article in the Lewis & Clark Law Review in 2005, Professor Bennett L. Gershman wrote,
[A] prosecutor’s fiduciary duty requires the prosecutor to exercise professional judgment, as the ABA Criminal Justice Standard directs, “solely for the benefit of the client–the people–free of any compromising influences or loyalties.” Thus, a prosecutor’s personal or private loyalties, or her political or ideological beliefs, must not be allowed to impede the lawful and professional performance of her official duties.
(Citations omitted.)
But then in the comments to this article at about.com, one netizen says:
Ya know as a black man in America, I can say with all honesty if this was a white 17 y/o having sex with a unconscious or intoxicated black girl, he would be called a rapist by the black community, especially if there was a video tape showing a limp black girl being dragged to the bathroom to have sex with his buddies.
To see the text of Genarlow Wilson’s appeal, click here. NPR’s coverage of the story is here. Professor Elizabeth Anne Wood’s blog, Sex in the Public Square, follows the story here.
-Bridget Crawford
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