The Genarlow Wilson story is the kind that sends shivers down the spine of any mother who loves her son. A Georgia judge did the right thing in reducing the charge against Wilson, thus reducing the sentence. After all, a hormonally driven teen, giving in to consensual oral sex, should be grounded or lose his driving privileges or have to clean toilets, but should not be sent to prison for ten years to be educated by truly dangerous felons. The law under which Wilson was convicted was never meant for horny teenagers, doing what horny teenagers sometimes do consensually. Virtually everyone understands that, including the Ga. legislature, which changed the law, and the jurors, who convicted Wilson without knowing the consequences of their verdict. The Georgia attorney general does not. He immediately filed an appeal.
Technically, the AG may be right. But technical arguments, divorced from justice, are what undermine the justice system and cause laypeople to lose faith in it. Often, it's defense counsel that rely on hypertechnical argments to absolve clients who are probably guilty. That's bad enough, but at least can be justified on the grounds that the rules are meant to protect the people from the power of the state. What's to be gained by continuing to keep Wilson in jail on a felony charge? He has already paid dearly for his transgression. Now is the time to exercise the discretion vested in prosecutors. Choose justice.
3 comments:
Amen to that!
I love seeing the media work to help bring about justice and much needed change. Too rarely does the media seek to help, rather than simply churn seediness and despair.
We need to take the concept of the press used by civil rights activists to a global scale and injustice wouldn't stand a chance. I hope that is what will happen now that Edith Isabel Rodriguez's horrific ordeal has ignited the media. If it leads to the rehabilitation of the MLK Jr-Harbor hospital and the equal treatment of patients, perhaps her death was not in vain.
That is indeed a function that the media should serve. It saddens me, though, that it takes stories as compelling as the Rodriguez ordeal to break through the noise of the Paris Hiltons and Britney Spears and the other junk that the media spends too much time on.
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