<p>Dailyreportonline.com has published a guest editorial (January 8) that critiques the defense in the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia. Clearly, the opinion piece suports the actions of the prosecutor, but the writer nevertheless raises questions we should think about. The sentence imposed on Wilson was harsh but the writer’s depiction of the young female victims leaves no doubt that he believes Wilson’s conduct was quite egregious and more than youthful indiscretion. I also found it interesting that Black Georgia ministers’ criticism of Wilson’s conduct and Wilson’s supporters were not widely reported at the time.</p>
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<p>[Wilson</a> heading to Morehouse College on scholarship from Joyner - Daily Report](<a href=“Daily Report”>Daily Report)</p>
<p>He is a victim/hero now.</p>
<p>Basically, the issue is with how a white guy would have been treated in the same circumstances. I think it would not have even come up as a legal matter in the first place. Still, I did not support this young man because of what he did. He was dishonorable, and so there is no way I am going to defend him even if the country would have turned a blind eye to a white guy in the same circumstance.</p>
<p>I felt the same way regarding the black nude dancer in the Duke case. And, I also think whites did in that case what blacks did in the Wilson case. They are making those Duke boys out to be kindhearted heros when in fact they were dishonorable drunks who hired a nude dancer for kicks. In my view, there was dishonor all around. It just came in black and white. There are no heroes, and no one who I would care to feel sorry for.</p>
<p>The situation of a bunch of drunk guys and girls engaging in promiscuous sex is bad. The fact that the boys all had sex with an apparently drunk 17 year old is worse. But they were acquitted of any crime connected with that girl.</p>
<p>What the outrage is centered around is the fact that Genarlow Wilson was sentenced as a sex offender and sent to prison for 10 years for the “crime” of accepting oral sex from a consenting 15 year old when he was 17. The outrage is over the fact that had he instead had sex with that 15 year old, he would not be committing a crime at all.</p>
<p>The racial overtones and associated ridiculousness aside (yes, I hate how the NAACP and the various Reverends make each case like this into a media circus with race war connotations), the real outrage in my opinion was that the act he committed, which I do not think should be criminal, and which the legislature apparently didn’t either (since they exempted vaginal sex within that age range from criminal prosecution), got him sentenced as a sex offender.</p>
<p>It was a bad situation all around, but the outcome was outrageous. Maybe it would have been more reasonable to convict him of rape and not on the second charge, but I maintain that a 10 year sentence based on barely-criminal consensual sex is an outrage, no matter what the other circumstances surrounding it are.</p>
<p>The editorial makes a good point that the media has overly bought into the portrayal of Wilson as an angelic hero and victim, but I think that’s about where the editorial’s good points end.</p>