His 10-year sentence for sex with another teen is voided
But Ga. attorney general says he'll appeal ruling
ATLANTA - An unrelenting tough-on-crime law aimed at sex offenders sent Genarlow Wilson to prison on a mandatory 10-year term for having consensual oral sex at 17 with a 15-year-old girl.
Now - even after a state judge called the punishment "a grave miscarriage of justice" and ordered the former high-school football star released - an unwavering prosecutor means to make that sentence stick.
Cheers went up yesterday morning from the legal team for Wilson, now 21, after the judge issued his order in the closely watched case, and Wilson's mother, Juannessa Bennett, wiped away tears as she called the decision "a miracle."
But some 90 minutes later the mood in the Wilson camp was sober, even angry, as Georgia's attorney general announced he would appeal. Wilson, who has grown into a symbol for what happens when the push to crack down on sex offenders strays into the realm of teen sex, wouldn't be walking out of prison yesterday after all.
In his notice of appeal, Attorney General Thurbert Baker argued that Georgia law does not give a judge authority to reduce or modify the sentence imposed by the trial court. He said he would seek an expedited ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court. And he noted that a a plea deal is on the table that would spring Wilson in a maximum of five years and also keep him off the sex-offender registry.
Not good enough, said Wilson's lawyer, B.J. Bernstein.
"It is really ridiculous when you consider that we had a judge that just said it is a misdemeanor that carries no sex-offender registration," she said.
Jubilant at the prospect of seeing her son a free man, Wilson's mother looked stricken after learning of the appeal.
"It's heartbreaking," Bennett said.
Bernstein said her office was seeking bond for Wilson to allow him to leave prison while his appeal is pending.
Wilson, a former honor student and homecoming king, has become a cause celebre, his case the fodder for prominent editorial pages and national news broadcasts. His sentence has been denounced even by members of the jury that convicted him and the author of the 1995 law that put him behind bars.
Some notable supporters, including former President Jimmy Carter and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, have said it raises questions about race and the criminal-justice system.
Opponents of Wilson's release argue it could open a floodgate for other cases. Georgia prisons hold 189 inmates who were sentenced for aggravated child molestation when they were 21 or younger.
Of those, 56 percent were white and 44 percent black, state figures show.
Wilson and five other male partygoers charged in the case were black, as were the two teenage girls involved.
"As far as I'm concerned, this case is a throwback to Southern justice," said state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat.
The judge yesterday threw out Wilson's 10-year sentence and amended it to misdemeanor aggravated child molestation with a 12-month term, plus credit for time served, and ordered that he not be required to register as a sex offender.
"The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice," wrote Judge Thomas H. Wilson, no relation to Genarlow Wilson.
"If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish . . . justice being served in a fair and equal manner," the judge wrote.
Under the "Romeo and Juliet" exception in Georgia law at the time, Wilson would have faced only one year in prison and would not have been placed on the sex-offender registry if he had sexual intercourse instead of oral sex with the girl.
Georgia lawmakers last year voted to close the loophole. But the state's top court said the new law could not be applied retroactively to Wilson's case.
The five other male partygoers took plea deals. One has been released from prison and is in college. *