Judge Frees Man Given Ten Years' Jail for Sex Act With Girl When They Were Teenagers

Jun 12, 04:56 AM

Current Headlines: By Eben Harrell

A COURT in the US state of Georgia yesterday ordered the release of a man sentenced to ten years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a girl when the two were teenagers.

Genarlow Wilson, now 21, has already served two years of his sentence. Georgia's attorney-general said he would appeal against the decision in an effort to keep Wilson in prison.

Wilson was sent to prison in 2005 for aggravated child molestation, then a felony with a minimum mandatory sentence of ten years and lifetime registration on the state's sexual offenders list.

A sport star and talented student, Wilson was 17 when he was videotaped at a 2003 New Year's Eve party having oral sex with a 15- year-old girl.

Under Georgia law, if he had had intercourse with the girl, he would have been charged with a misdemeanour and received a far lighter sentence. But a loophole in the law allowed prosecutors to file felony charges.

Georgia legislators changed the law in 2006 to make oral sex among teenagers a misdemeanour.

Wilson's plight became a cause. Jimmy Carter, the former US president, and other well-known figures wrote letters of support. The legislator who sponsored the law under which Wilson was convicted said it was never intended to be used that way.

"The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanour, and without assistance from this court will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice," Superior Court judge Thomas Wilson said in his ruling, but Georgia's attorney-general, Thurbert Baker, said the judge had no authority to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court.

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