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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Genarlow gambled and lost
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) the top ranking member of the Georgia State Senate nailed it Monday in reacting to the decision handed down in the Genarlow Wilson child molestation case. “The Georgia Supreme Court already ruled on the constitutionality of some of this,” he said of the decision by Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Wilson that the sentence imposed in Douglas County was grossly disproportionate and violated the state constitution. The judge changed Wilson’s felony to a misdemeanor and ordered him freed. Said Johnson, the president pro tem of the State Senate: “I think this was another…[judge] enjoying his 15 minutes of fame.
Georgia’s Attorney General Thurbert Baker is right, too, and it’s a mark of the man’s courage that he elected not to take the easy way out. “The law in Georgia is clear that while a habeas court may grant habeas relief, there is absolutely no authority for a habeas court to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court,” said Baker.
The Wilson case has gotten so absurd that activist Joseph Lowery urged Baker to drop the appeal — or resign — and to set this “political prisoner” free. It would have been awfully easy for Baker to capitulate to such pressure. But it would have been wrong. The Legislature acted and intentionally chose not to revisit more than 90 cases like or similar to Wilson’s.
What’s more, there’s the matter of the four other males at the same party who agreed to plead guilty to aggravated child molestation involving the same 15-year-old girl and sexual battery of the dazed 17-year-old. A fifth male also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment.
Wilson chose to run the table, rejecting a plea bargain, while gambling that he could beat the rap. He didn’t. Even as late as last weekend, Wilson was offered a plea deal that would have accomplished his stated objectives and he turned it down, according to the attorney general. The deal would let Wilson plead as a first-offender “which would mean he would not have a criminal record nor would be subject to registering on the sex offender registry once his sentence has been completed,” said Baker. It would have been a shorter sentece and might have set him free based on time served. Wilson and his lawyer rejected it.
Bad judgment. Bad advice. Repeatedly. Justice is not about just this “political prisoner,” as Lowery calls him. It’s about the 90-plus others without public relations machines, or the five others who accepted plea bargains. Wilson was determined to set himself apart from the law so that he’d be right and the law, the prosecutor, trial court and legislature would all be wrong. He appears to have found a 15-minutes-of-fame judge who is willing to go along. The judge’s ruling was a shocker; its reversal won’t be.
