Reason Prevails

Today I went online to see a piece of good news that I’ve kinda-sorta been tracking for the past few months. I’ve contributed my support to this cause – verbally and symbolically at least – and it seems like it’s finally given dividends. It’s a victory not only for the individual in question, but also for any of you dirty, perverted felons (you’ll see what I mean in a second) who may be reading this.

In Georgia, the case of Genarlo Wilson has been appealed and Wilson, 21, is finally a free man again. For the uninitiated, Genarlo Wilson was a high school student, star football player, and all-around good guy. He has been in jail for the past two years as a sexual felon after a camera at a New Years party caught his girlfriend giving him oral sex. She was 15; he was 17.
When he was convicted, he was sentenced to serve 10 years in jail, and would have to register as a sex offender once he was released.

In short, Mr. Wilson got fucked. Twice.

Wilson was convicted before Georgia changed the laws regarding underage sexual encounters. Previously, ANY sex with ANY minor that was brought before a judge was a felony. Now, Georgia has made consensual oral sex between two minors a misdemeanor, punishable by one year in prison at the most, and barely worth a blurb in a newspaper. For cheeky touch, they dubbed this new legislation “The Romeo & Juliet Laws”. What’s worse is that if he’d been caught just performing vaginal intercourse with his girlfriend, it would’ve also been a misdemeanor.
According to Reason Magazine’s blog “Hit and Run”, the ruling was split 4-3 in Wilson’s favor. If you’d like to read everything you’d ever want to know about the case, you can read it here.

There are a bunch of issues, the most intellectual of all would be the question of whether or not changes of the law are retroactive. For example, let’s say, for sake of argument, that the federal government decriminalizes marijuana tomorrow. It is now legal to own, consume, and distribute to anyone over 18. When that new law comes into play, would the people already in jail for possession offenses have their convictions overturned and be let out of jail? It’s complicated, and I still haven’t made a fist as to how I feel about it. My heart is with this guy because I thought he shouldn’t have been in jail in the first place, but I can’t find myself agreeing that he should be let out because it’s now considered less of a crime. Now, before you go grabbing your e-mail clients, I look at the situation thusly: bills of attainder are unconstitutional, which is why you can’t be jailed or punished for doing something while it wasn’t a crime. Mr. Wilson’s case is simply that but in reverse. I feel he should’ve been let out because of the absurdity of his sentence, not because of a legal loophole.

The second, less pressing yet equally disturbing question is what rationale did the three judges who voted against Wilson have? There is the moral and (sigh) righteous argument, and I’ll get to that in a second. Once again, I have to preach. The Law is there to make us act better than our animal, gut instinct would allow us to act. Just because you feel something is right doesn’t make it so. And if you’re afraid of sex or the sexual experimentation of teenagers, it doesn’t mean that these things should be against the law. A well thought out argument based on more than morals or gut instinct needs to support what you believe or else it has no substance whatsoever.

Finally, there’s the question of why he was jailed in the first place? I first caught the story listening to Penn Jillette’s radio show, and I agreed with just about everything he had to say on the topic. First of all, how many of us would be felons under the same law? I know that half my graduating class and many of my close friends are criminals in that definition. Second of all, for a crime to occur, there must be a real victim. I do know that is possible to force someone to give you oral sex, but I haven’t heard any mention of a weapon or any sign of coercion yet in this case. Whether people want to believe it or not, both persons involved were willing participants, and since Wilson wasn’t over the legal age of consent himself, legally he couldn’t consent to the act either. Therefore, the girl performing the sex act is as guilty (if not more guilty) of breaking any sort of law as he is.

Public speakers like Al Sharpton are calling this a race issue, and I’m skeptical to say the least. From my perspective, this is the only case that I’ve heard of that surrounds this issue of consensual underage sex. If there are others, I’ll eat my words (with some farva beans and a nice Chiante…). My take on it is more that it’s an issue of sexual prudishness crossed with an unfortunate grey area in the law. I’d be interested in knowing who started up the complaint. My instinct would say the parents of the girl, but I can’t independently confirm that. Therefore, my expected rant about how parents should get with the now and realize that kids are having sex under their noses (which is a very kinky image) is pretty much kiboshed. But I’m sure I’ll get the chance to give it a little later.

Anyways, the real winner here is Genarlo. I’m glad he’s out of prison and can now live his life in the way he sees fit without having his freedom taken away, both figuratively and literally.