This is so unjust it is insane!

[Oerdin]

The Georgia Supreme Court just upheld a sentence of 10 years in prison without possibility of parole for a 17 year old boy who had consensual Oral Sex with his 15-Year-Old year old girlfriend. He will now have to be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life even after he serves his 10 year sentence all because his girlfriend pulled down his pants and gave him a hummer. The south sucks! :q:

Mandatory sentencing laws are evil and the dirt bag politicians, typically Republican, who continually push for more insane and unbalanced laws against "sexual predators" are idiots. IT IS A FRIGGING MISDEMEANOR CHARGE YET HE GETS 10 YEARS IN PRISON?! Then there is the fact that for the rest of his life he will no be labeled a sex offender, likely will have a hard time finding work, will have to report on a weekly basis to the police, will have to register in a public registry so other dirt bag fundamentalists can attack him, and the state might even take away his kids (if he ever has any) because they might be unsafe around a father who is a sex offender. This is just nuts.


Ten Years in Prison for 17-Year-Old Who Had Consensual Oral Sex with 15-Year-Old:
The Georgia Supreme Court just upheld this. The sentence strikes me as unduly harsh even on its own terms, but it seems especially unjustifiable given that:

The age of consent in Georgia is 16.

In 2006, the Georgia Legislature amended the statute to provide that oral sex between an under-18-year-old and a 13-to-15-year-old is only a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of a year in jail. This revised statute would have thus made the defendant's conduct a misdemeanor had he committed his crime after the statute's enactment, but the statute expressly provided that it wasn't retroactive.

Even at the time the act occurred, genital sex between an under-18-year-old and a 14-or-15-year-old was also a misdemeanor.

This defendant had no criminal record that would justify an especially long sentence.


Exerts of the ruling can be found at this link: http://volokh.com/posts/1166468931.shtml

[LynnTheDem]

1. You gotta be MFing joking...

This is a joke...right? RIGHT?!

:wow:

[rodeodance]

2. yes, having to Register will ruin him for the rest of his life. These registries

need to be rethought--for instances such as above.

[Der Blaue Engel]

3. This is why California's Prop 83 is a nightmare

that too many uninformed voters thought was a great idea. :(

[Oerdin]

4. Another Blogger's view on this ruling.

Peking Duck's take on events (it's a well know Chinese blogger's website):


Ten Years in Prison for 17-Year-Old Who Had Consensual Oral Sex with 15-Year-Old

The blogger rightly finds this sentence too harsh. What an understatement. It's frikkin' insane. Isn't it time to end all mandatory sentences? Isn't it time to stop the insanity? We recently had an impassioned thread on the inanities of China's laws. Looking at this story, I can only say we sacrifice the right to lecture all others when we allow such obscene perversions of justice to take place in America. This is just plain wrong and everyone with a minimal amount of grey matter knows it. Not just wrong, but wicked. Can you imagine, a 17-year-old sentenced to a decade in jail for...for...for nothing. Yeah, he shouldn't have done it, but he's still a ****ing kid who committed an all but victimless crime with no malice or intent to hurt anybody. What's wrong with us? What's wrong with us? Ten years. A life ruined, and for what? God bless America.

Update: And if you have any doubt as to whether this is justice perverted or not, this blogger lays it out clearly. So clearly, you can cry with frustration.

Update 2: I'm having an interesting debate with another blogger about this. Needless to say, I am completely right.

Update 3: Here's the young man's website: http://www.wilsonappeal.com/index.php; here's his online petition.

http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/004432.php

I must say American loses any sort of moral authority when we all crap like this to happen, or when black kids get beaten for being black in a white neighborhood, or when muslims get tortured, or when we refuse to grant fair trials to US citizens accused of terrorism much less foreigners.

[VelmaD]

5. while I don't agree with this sentence AT ALL...

one contradiction to note in your post...the 17 year old could not have consensual sex with the 15 year old because, as you noted, the age of consent in Georgia is 16. The 15 year old cannot legally give consent. It's ridiculous in some cases, but it is the law and it's intended to protect young teens from much older adults. Situations like the one in this story is why some states have passed "Romeo and Juliet" laws so that teens who are dating don't run afoul of the law when one turns 17 or 18.

Oh, and as someone who works in the system, he can petition the court not to have to register as a sex offender. His situation is just made for a judge to waive that.

[aikoaiko]

6. I bet it was a sodomy charge, Sodomy was struck down for adults, but not when involving minors.

Poor kid.

[J Miles]

7. Meanwhile, Mark Foley...

Probably won't be facing any charges for breaking the law that he helped pass.

[smokey nj]

8. Meanwhile in NY, a former CEO gets 15 months after pleading guilty

to possession of child pornography.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-12-15T220413Z_01_N15385664_RTRUKOC_0_US-PORNOGRAPHY-PUBLISHER.xml

[Oerdin]

9. It gets worse.

Georgia ammended it's law recently so that actual sex with a minor between 15-17 with a teen who is less then 2 years older then the minor only gets a max of one year in prison. That means if these two had sex the guy would have only recieved a year. Since it was oral sex though he gets 10 years.

How is this justice in any way?

(Note, the source for that is the link provided in the original post.)

[smokey nj]

10. That makes no sense at all. Unbelievable.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Here is a story...

A couple of years ago in Wisconsin, an 18-year-old young lady was convicted of the statutory rape of 2 14-year-old boys. The boys were foster children taken in by the girl's parents. They were both conduct-disordered (i.e. baby psychopaths). At the time of sentencing, a psychologist was called in to evaluate the girl. He found that she was mentally retarded, with a mental age lower than the chronological ages of her "victims." Her attorney was able to use this information to keep her out of prison and off the sex offender registry, although she did end up with jail time and probation.

I was the psychologist.

[Erika]

12. We have an 19 year old boy in prison in Idaho

Because he had sex with his girlfriend (consensual) when she was 17 and he was 18. He will also be listed as a sex offender.

These sex laws have gone crazy in the ultra conservative states.

[Richard D]

15. And truly bizarre is that

a year earlier and it was legal. The day he turned 18, sex with his girlfriend was then illegal. Bizarre.

[Webster Green]

13. American Taliban..

Hope I never have to set foot in the Southeast US again.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Red State

Everyone move up to the Northeast. The only nutty stuff we get here in Mass. are debates over whether Fluffernutter sandwiches can be served for school lunch.

[lonestarnot]

16. More info please? Was the defendant black? victim?

[TahitiNut]

17. I hate to ask this question, but: What 'race' was/is the defendant?

There's got to be more in this than what I read here.

[zalinda]

18. It's on his website, he's black n/t

[TahitiNut]

20. (Sheesh) If ever a case called for a pardon, this one does. Abominable.

I finally found the link to the Atlanta Magazine article at http://www.atlantamagazine.com/article.php?id=158

[LSK]

19. this is disgusting, his life is ruined for doing something lots of teens do

They just dont get caught. This is so very long on so many levels.

[OneBlueSky]

21. to many in this country, any sex outside of marriage is worse than murder . . .

and it's especially egregious when young people are involved . . . the fact that teens have been engaging in sexual activity since the beginning of time seems of no relevance to these people . . .

just one of the many ways that America is a sick, sick society . . .

[mwb970]

24. "Isn't it ironic?" in the light of the new sexuality study.

You say "to many in this country, any sex outside of marriage is worse than murder", which is obviously true. But a study was just released (it's all over the news today) about how 95% of Americans have pre-marital sex. How does this fit? Is all the noise coming from that remaining 5%? Or could there be some hypocrisy here?

[JNelson6563]

22. Need to increase slave labor force!

And it's through stupid laws like this we can be sure of brining in plenty of healthy, young bodies to churn out the work.

Oy.

Julie

[elehhhhna]

23. A good firm will take this appeal, pro bono, and get it straight.

It'll take time but it'll get fixed.

Since when the hell did we decide to make our govenment the sex-police? GOOD LUCK w/ that.

[lectrobyte]

25. This is so fucked up. The sex offender stuff was supposed to protect

society from proven threats, not ruin the life of a 17 year old doing something that is normal and healthy activity.