A few months ago, I put up a post on the case of Genarlow Wilson, a Georgia man who was sentenced to ten years in prison because when he was seventeen he had consensual sex with a fifteen year old girl who went to the same high school he did. He would also have had to register as a sex offender upon being released from prison.
Aside from questions about whether this prosecution ever would have happened had Wilson not been black or if it were the girl who was two years older instead of himself, there was a question about whether the laws originally intended to protect minors from child molesters went too far in the case. There were also those who simply hate the idea of teen (or other premarital) sex and wanted to punish Wilson to the nth degree to make him an example for other high school students.
Well, today the Georgia Supreme Court ordered Wilson released unconditionally, ruling that ten years for teenage sex was 'cruel and unusual punishment.'
I agree. It shouldn't have taken this long, but at least someone in Georgia had a lick of sense.
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