One Cheer for Al Sharpton
The professional agitator is barrelling pompadour-first into the Genarlow Wilson case.
Sharpton did not mention Attorney General Thurbert Baker by name, but called on "those that are in office because of us" to take action to get 21-year-old Genarlow Wilson freed.
"Don't walk over the bodies of martyrs and achieve a position of personal stature, and then forget how you got there and sit there in silence while your children are locked in jail for unjust sentences," said Sharpton, a radio talk-show host and former Democratic presidential candidate. "There's something ungrateful about those who would benefit off the blood of martyrs and not stand up for those that put you there in the first place."
Baker, one of two African-American officials elected statewide in Georgia, said in response, "I have the utmost respect and appreciation for the sacrifices made by Dr. King and the other leaders of the civil rights movement who changed America for the better.
"Those leaders also believed in a system governed by laws, because the alternative is a lawless society. I am doing no less than following the law that I have sworn to uphold."
Did you know the civil rights movement was all about following the law? Amazing. Someone owes Woolworth's a fat reparation check for all of those lost lunch counter profits.
Radley Balko has been all over the case.
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I am doing no less than following the law that I have sworn to uphold.
Bullshit asshole. You’re doing far less in your capricious application of the law for personal gain. Anyone so despicable they make Al Sharpton the voice of reason, is a world class douche.
“I have the utmost respect and appreciation for the sacrifices made by Dr. King and the other leaders of the civil rights movement who changed America for the better.
“Those leaders also believed in a system governed by laws, because the alternative is a lawless society. I am doing no less than following the law that I have sworn to uphold.”
“Following the law”…what a joke. This guy would be the first to scream “prosecutorial discretion” if Genarlow Wilson sued him. And he’d be right. He has total discretion on whether to pursue the appeal in the case. He’s not “following” anything.
What am I missing here? Sure, this guy’s an asshole, but there’s no way he’s such an asshole that he actually wants this kid to rot in jail for this. Very few people in this world are THAT evil. So his hands must be tied in some way. What’s going on? I mean, the law has already been changed, though it wasn’t made retroactive; so it shouldn’t be too hard to get this kid pardoned by the governor or have his sentence commuted or SOMETHING.
Anyone so despicable they make Al Sharpton the voice of reason, is a world class douche.
Well said.
Even though as you’ve said something against a black politician you’re now a racist, Al, but that’s another thread.
So his hands must be tied in some way. What’s going on? I mean, the law has already been changed, though it wasn’t made retroactive; so it shouldn’t be too hard to get this kid pardoned by the governor or have his sentence commuted or SOMETHING.
I know. Makes you grasp at something to make it make sense, but the court freed the kid but the state appealed. He could have just said “sorry, court freed him” and let it drop, but didn’t. Strange.
Pinette, Other Matt,
Check out the wikipedia entry – Baker has offered a plea deal that would classify Wilson as a “First Offender” and put him through a program instead of jail.
Which doesn’t make it right. Just answering your question.
joe, a felony conviction sticks with you for your entire life.
“Did you know the civil rights movement was all about following the law? Amazing. Someone owes Woolworth’s a fat reparation check for all of those lost lunch counter profits.”
radley, that was the best fuck you I’ve read in a while
radley, that was the best fuck you I’ve read in a while
A-hem.
My guess is it just slipped to second best…
The test of law must be “is this just?”, not “is this what the words say?”
If Mr Baker cannot explain his actions in terms of what is right rather than “Those leaders also believed in a system governed by laws, because the alternative is a lawless society. I am doing no less than following the law that I have sworn to uphold”, I must deem him evil, in the sense of being wilfully complicit in what he knows to be wrong.
Jack,
Read the last line of my comment.
Very few people in this world are THAT evil.
What the fuck world are you talking about?
David,
That was the best Bite Me I’ve read in a while
The right to New Year’s Eve orgies with 15-year-old girls … can somebody point that out to me in the Constitution?
People don’t know the full background of this situation. Some relevant facts:
1. A few years ago, amid much public concern about child abuse, sex crimes, and teen pregnancy, the Georgia legislature passed some rather draconian laws on the subject of sex with minors.
2. Douglas County’s district attorney is David McDade, who prides himself on being the toughest prosecutor on the planet. (I grew up in Douglas County and went to school with McDade’s sisters.)
3. Wilson and his friends made two major mistakes, (a) they broke the law in Douglas County, and (b) they videotaped the crime.
For future reference, if you ever break the law in Douglas County and decide to provide David McDade with irrefutable (and emotionally inflammatory) evidence of your crime, for God’s sake, take the plea bargain.
Robert,
People don’t know the full background of this situation.
The full and entire background of the case have been discussed here a number of times.
Forget the law. Forget the vindictive man who’s in power in that county. A prosecutor’s job isn’t supposed to be about convicting people and getting them long sentences because he’s “tough on crime”. A prosecutor is supposed to seek justice — even if that justice doesn’t necessarily agree with him.
Baker isn’t “standing up for the law” because he has to. Any first year law student who’s taken criminal law or criminal procedure knows what prosecutorial discretion is.
Robert Stacy McCain,
Why, then, is everyone acting so outraged that the Attorney General has appealed the court’s ruling?
Presumably because some people view those facts differently.
How come the girl wasn’t prosecuted for having sex with a minor? Or was she?
I will not share a cheer for douche bag Al Sharpton. There must be an angle in this that perpetuates his career. Nothing more.
And if you have douche bags like Thurbert (jeez dude could you have a more fucking lame name. God how I hope you were indefatigably mocked in school) who needs terrorists?
I was comforted by these word in the Declaration of Independence that we were supposed to celebrate yesterday:
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Dudes, I think we have duty to revolt. Cocksuckers like Thurbert do not do anything close to protecting my life, liberty, or my pursuit of happiness. Mindlessly obeying and enforceing despotic laws makes you no different that any other tyrant.
And if you dont think this is a tyranny, remember we have more concentration camps (read: prisons) than anyone in the world. We don’t have the balls yet to go to the next step and turn them into extermination camps. Of course Texas is sure as fuck trying.
OK, to reassure myself that I had not overlooked some fact that rendered the Wilson case worthy of all this hyperventilation, I did some Googling, and found this column by a district attorney from Newton County, Ga.:
What the hyperventilators seem to be saying is that what was justice for Wilson’s fellow orgy-goers is injustice for Wilson. What’s the difference, except that Wilson’s lawyers managed to get his name in the New York Times?
Law != Justice
Since when is calling “bullshit” on draconian laws considered not taking responsibility? Wilson’s never denied putting his unit in the girl’s mouth.
RSM:
So because he didn’t plead guilty to an asinine crime he deserves 10 years in jail?
Riddle me this: If he had taken the plea, he would have had to register as a sex offender. If he had to register as a sex offender, he would no longer be able to live at home or near his mother due to the presence of his younger sister. Would that change your mind?
If you really had to arrest people for this stuff, I would be in jail (I was doing such things with my 15 year old girlfriend when she was 16!), and at least 1/3rd of the teenage males in America would be going to jail. C’mon.
Plus please explain to me why it made a remote amount of sense that he gets 10 years in jail for this, but if he had sexual intercourse with her instead of getting a damned blowjob, it wouldn’t even have been a felony.
Correction: I was doing such things with my 15 year old girlfriend when *I* was 16. That’ll teach me to hit “submit” before “preview”.
Hate to triple post, but…
RSM, if you want to quote a DA from another county, I’ll do you one better and quote a somewhat better authority… the legislator who WROTE the law that Wilson was convicted under.
———-
The former state lawmaker who wrote the law that sent Genarlow Wilson to prison is joining efforts to free the 21-year-old.
Former state Rep. Matt Towery says he will file papers with the Georgia Supreme Court clarifying the intent of the 1995 Child Protection Act.
Meanwhile, people working to free Wilson will hold rally at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the Douglas County Courthouse.
A bond hearing had been scheduled Thursday for Wilson, but a judge canceled the hearing after ruling June 27 that Wilson is ineligible for bond while he appeals his sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.
The Legislature has changed the law to eliminate the mandatory 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation in such cases, but lawmakers did not make the change retroactive.
The Georgia Supreme Court is to hear the latest appeal in October. Wilson’s lawyers had sought to get him released on bond while the appeal moved forward.
Robert Stacy McCain | July 5, 2007, 8:00pm | #
The right to New Year’s Eve orgies with 15-year-old girls … can somebody point that out to me in the Constitution?
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
A round of 15-year-old girls for everyone in the house…it’s on me
Robert,
I believe that he didn’t take the plea because that would have forced him to move out of the house with his mother and much younger sister, who he was helping raise.
But, yeah, you’re totally right. That does deserve a ten year prison sentence, the consensual sex and all. I don’t know why everyone is so out of shape.
Castration! That’s what this case really calls for. Castration and a lifetime sentence.
Did little Al make mention of ‘Chinamen’ running Korean owned businesses?
Just wonderin’
That Nigger deserves 25 years in Jail.
They all do
Now, however, the tide has shifted once again, and the bien pensants tell us that producing a porn tape with a couple of drunk teenager girls is a constitutional right.
I’m not saying it’s a constitutional right. Also, I’m not quite sure what prompted your rambling jaunt down sex crime memory lane, though I do think date rape should be punished and I think pornography is bad for women (though it shouldn’t be illegal).
I am saying giving a 17 year old kid a 10 year sentence because he had consensual oral sex (which is what this case boils down to) is a travesty of justice and repugnant to anyone concerned about equality before the law. Moreover, I don’t even see how anyone looking at the facts of this case can see otherwise. And I’m saying that seriously — explain to me how getting ten years for oral sex (while legal) conforms to any reasonable notion of justice.
Do you know what was on that videotape? Does David Weigel know what was on that videotape? No.
But lawyers for Wilson’s five co-defendants knew what was on that videotape, and they knew they didn’t want their clients facing a Douglas County jury that had seen that videotape. So they copped a plea — the same deal that Wilson refused.
The problem with what I believe is your argument, is that the jury did see the videotape, and yet when given the opportunity, did not convict for rape. What they did convict for was a technical violation of the law, that as many posters here have noted, would place much of the juvenile male population of Georgia in jail if widely applied. It’s the application of that insane law, as exemplified by Mr. Wilson, that causing the controversy. 10 years for ‘consensual’ oral sex between minors is ludicrous. We already have laws against rape; the jury decided that Mr. Wilson was not guilty of them.
I’m not defending what Mr. Wilson and his friends did. If your interpretation of the videotape is anywhere close to correct, he and his associates sound throughly loathsome. But to repeat, a jury looked at that tape and decide not to convict him of the crimes that he commited according to your interpretation.
I’m sorry, from what I’ve read about this (elsewhere) I ain’t going to the mat for this guy even if the entire city of New York raised a million bucks for his bail.
Oh, and so happy to learn that the Vice President of Black America is concerned.
I am not — repeat not — arguing that every teenager who gets to third base with his girlfriend deserves to be in prison. But most teenagers are not so stupid as to provide prosecutors with the kind of evidence involved in this case.
Wait a second. You’re acknowledging that the substantive act doesn’t merit this punishment, but you’re saying he should be locked away for a decade for being “stupid”?
Ah yes, from your other comments I see that you also think he should be locked away because he had the audacity to refuse to cop a plea for consensual oral sex. That also seems to be the gist of the prosecutor’s statements, “defy me, and I’ll ruin your life!”
RSM-
The legislator who wrote the law under which Wilson was convicted has stated that the legislative intent of the law was that it NOT apply to situations where there is only a two year age difference, as we have here.
Nobody is saying that Wilson is an angel. But the appeals court ruling reducing his sentence to the same sentence he would have received if he had sex with the girl seems fair.
You’re right on Chris S. RSM thinks teenage oral sex should get you 10 years jail time when:
I am not — repeat not — arguing that every teenager who gets to third base with his girlfriend deserves to be in prison. But most teenagers are not so stupid as to provide prosecutors with the kind of evidence involved in this case.
Teenage oral sex is not a crime, unless it’s recorded on videotape for everyone to see. Then you should go to jail or plea bargain and be a sex offender the rest of your life. Sheesh RSM, you’re one cold-blooded SOB.
It is true about Sharpton — a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Sheesh RSM, you’re one cold-blooded SOB.
Not cold blooded. Just a fucking moron.
And btw, what kind of shithole state would even criminalize sex, oral or otherwise, between a 17 year old and a 15 year old in the first place?
Oh, that’s right…Georgia. Why do so many of the most fucked-up legal issues come from Georgia and Florida? Is there something in the water down there?
Look, Charles: Six guys were involved. Five copped a plea. One took his chances on a jury trial and was convicted.
If Wilson goes free as a result of this kind of media-driven victimhood crusade, wouldn’t that deny “equality before the law” to the five guys who took the plea bargain?
I am not — repeat not — arguing that every teenager who gets to third base with his girlfriend deserves to be in prison. But most teenagers are not so stupid as to provide prosecutors with the kind of evidence involved in this case.
It seems to me, Charles, that you are arguing for a Nerf-world, where everything is foam-padded so that no one ever faces consequences for their actions, no matter how stupid those actions may be.
Consequences are important. This kid should probably get some punishment: losing his football scholarship, community service, something like that would be reasonable (though I still would think that it’s because of a stupid law).
Furthermore, we’re not talking about Mumia or someone like that, who shot a cop and deserves to be punished. We’re talking about a 17 year old, a good kid who went to a bad party and got oral sex from a girl two years younger than him, someone who didn’t want to plea in part because he’s helping his single mom raise his 8 year old sister, and taking the plea would have meant registering a sex offender (just read that! Consensual sex = sex offender).
It’s difficult to even wrap your head around it. If one of your neighbors was on the sex offender list, required to tell everyone in the neighborhood, and told you that story, would you believe them?
We’re not talking about whether or not the punishment is deserved (I don’t think it is, but I’m not bent out of shape over the fact of punishment). The question is whether this punishment is in any way commensurate to the action. And, of course, it’s not. The fact that he refused the plea, which apparently for you absolves the prosecution entirely, makes this even more offensive. It’s obvious the prosecution is punishing this kid just for the hell of it, to show what happens when you won’t deal.
Again, this case boils down to a 17 year old getting a ten year prison sentence and having his life ruined for getting oral sex from someone two years younger than him. It’s scarcely believable. In fact, if Balko didn’t post this sort of prosecutorial misconduct all the time, I wouldn’t believe it.
I think the important clause in Robert’s sentence was “not every teenager”. He naturally means that the prison sentences should apply to black teenagers who aren’t him. See? It’s easy to figure out.
Robert Stacy McCain does not want all teenage boys to go to jail for sex, just black ones ( I’m sorry, maybe taking swipes at this racist douche is too easy. I apologize.). Maybe he should read some of Radley’s posts about the problems with plea bargains, or even think of how absurd it would be for an innocent kid to plead guilty to being a branded sex criminal for having consensual sex with another teenager.
Go back to your League of the South and Amren meetings and come back out of hiding the next time reason posts something about an innocent black person so you can give us “the full background.”
Consequences are important. This kid should probably get some punishment: losing his football scholarship, community service, something like that would be reasonable (though I still would think that it’s because of a stupid law).
Why does he deserve even that — or any consequences?
I guess I don’t see what he did wrong at all. A high school kid got a blowjob from another high school kid who wanted to give him one? That’s should have “consequences”? Why exactly?
“Look, Charles: Six guys were involved. Five copped a plea. One took his chances on a jury trial and was convicted”
RSM seems to be suggesting that “copping a plea” means everything turned out OK. Those guys got 5-year sentences, didn’t they? Why the hell should Wilson take a plea bargain that’s going to land him in prison for 5 years for getting a consensual bj?
Look, nobody’s saying that a 17-year-old should go to jail for receiving consensual oral sex from a 15 year old. Well, okay, I’m saying that, but only in cases where it’s on videotape and the videotape is watched by law enforcement and the prosecutor wants to make a name for himself by throwing the book at the kid to ensure said prosecutor’s “tough on crime” legacy. That’s all I’m saying.