You Have Got To Be Kidding

I ran across this article from CNN.com on Drudge Report. What follows is only part of the article.

Wilson, 21, was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, during a 2003 New Year's Eve party in Douglas County, just west of Atlanta, Georgia.

Wilson was also charged with raping a 17-year-old girl at the party -- who prosecutors maintained was too intoxicated to consent -- but jurors acquitted him on that charge.

Under the state law in effect at the time, Wilson received a mandatory 10-year sentence and has already served more than two years.

Partly as a result of Wilson's conviction, state legislators changed the law to make such consensual conduct between teenagers a misdemeanor, rather than a felony. But that change wasn't made retroactive, so it did not affect Wilson.

Monday, acting on a petition filed by his attorneys, Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson ruled that Genarlow Wilson's punishment was cruel and unusual and voided it on constitutional grounds. The judge reduced the sentence to one year and said Wilson should not be put on Georgia's sex offender registry, as the old law required.

Wilson's attorneys hoped to use the ruling to free him from state prison. But shortly after it was handed down, Baker announced he would appeal the decision, a move that keeps Wilson behind bars.

In a statement announcing his decision, Baker said he filed the appeal to resolve "clearly erroneous legal issues," charging that the judge did not have the authority "to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court."


I can not believe that a 17 year old can go to jail for ten years for engaging in oral sex with a girl two years younger. And I am highly disturbed that the prosecution would fight the judge's sentence reduction. While I understand the constitutional issues involved with a judge overturning a trial court sentence, an innocent man should not have to spend time in prison to prove this point.