Genarlow Wilson Updates
In a good news/even-more-stupid news situation, Atlanta TV station WGCL brings us two updates in the Genarlow Wilson case.
First, yesterday the state Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision and has decided to expedite two appeals by Genarlow Wilson.
ATLANTA -- Genarlow Wilson will get a hearing before Georgia's top court earlier than expected.
The state Supreme Court gave no reason Monday for the decision to move the case ahead of the docket.The high court said it will hear two appeals next week from Wilson, who's serving a 10-year prison sentence for having oral sex with a fellow teenager.
The court reversed its earlier decision not to expedite the case. The justices initially had been scheduled to hear Wilson's appeal in October.
<!--more--> This is very good news, and I would hope that in some small way we here at UDreamOfJanie and Sex in the Public Square may have contributed to the public outcry over this travesty which caused the Georgia Supreme Court to pull its various heads out of its collective butt.
Second, WGCL is reporting that US District Attorney David Nahmias has declared the video tape of Genarlow Wilson receiving his blow job is child pornography.
ATLANTA -- A U.S. district attorney issued a statement on Wednesday declaring the Genarlow Wilson videotapes as child pornography.
This statement came just days after a CBS46 investigation raised questions about the distribution of the tape."The videotape at issue constitutes child pornography under federal law and should not be knowingly distributed, received, or possessed outside of law enforcement and judicial proceedings," said U.S. District Attorney David Nahmias in a statement released Wednesday.
Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.The videotape is of the party where the sex act took place and was used as a primary piece of evidence Wilson's trial.The statement also advised that anyone in possession of the tape outside of law enforcement should return it to police or destroy it immediately.
While this may have legal merit, I have to wonder if the real object of such a statement is to lay the groundwork for bringing further charges either against Wilson or whichever teenager actually shot the video.
This governmental hysteria over the sex lives of teenagers begs the question of whether the officials in charge should assess their own motivations and whether their obsession runs afoul of the very laws they are so fervently "enforcing".
For further reading, check out Elizabeth’s posts at Sex In The Public Square on WordPress or here at Sex in the Public Square.org
(Cross Posted at UDreamOfJanie)
UPDATE: It looks like if charges are brought for child pornography, the district attorney's office would be the first in line to be prosecuted for distribution. Talk about the irony.
The Douglas County District Attorney's office said they have handed out numerous copies of a home video taken the night Genarlow Wilson and other teens engaged in sex acts that would later land Wilson and five other boys in jail.
The district attorney's office said they are complying with the state's freedom of information act by handing out the video to people who submitted open records requests. But former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Brickman said the distribution is "unlawful" because it is video tape "of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct."
Other critics like state representative Mary Margaret Oliver said distributing the tape violates privacy and child pornography laws. "It’s not fair to the victim," Oliver said. She believes privacy laws trump the public's right to information in this case.
Well, did I call that or what?
Kisses,
JanieBelle
Dream a little dream of me.
One thing that gets to me...
One thing that gets to me in all this, and you know I believe that Wilson should never have been prosecuted for that blow job, is that it appears a rape really happened that night and nobody was convicted of it, and that part of the story gets lost most of the time. The other alleged rapists pleaded to lesser charges, and Wilson -- who insisted on being tried -- was acquitted by the same jury that found him guilty of the child molestation charge.
A while back Pandagon had a piece about Wilson that referred to his essentially being punished for the crime they couldn't convict on (the rape). I suspect that's true. I didn't see the video. And as JanieBelle has pointed out, that tape is now likely to be considered child pornography. But I'm just as disturbed by the inability to get a rape conviction in a situation that people described as a pretty clear instance of guys having sex with a passed out woman, as I am appalled by the overzealous prosecution of a young man for something that shouldn't have been a crime in the first place.
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
Thanks, Elizabeth!
Wow, although I was aware there was a rape alleged, everything I had thus far read seemed to indicate that the alleged rape was the blow job in question.
The conflation of the two events is disturbing, but again as you say he was aquitted of that crime (whether justly or not) and it does seem that he's being punished in one instance for the act in the other instance in light of this.
Still, it is a very dangerous precedent. If he was aquitted, he was aquitted. He should not be serving time for a crime for which he was acquitted.
It is indeed disturbing however, that nobody was convicted in the rape of the elder girl, despite the video evidence. I think I would need to see the evidence to make an informed opinion on that case, but it seems the people who needed to see it did see it, and concluded there was not enough evidence to convict.
Now that the tape is being labeled "child pornography", it's quite the conundrum on that score for us, the general public.
So where does one go from here? Legally, it would seem we have no choice but to abide by the decision of the jury. I can't help but admit some internal unrest over this now.
After all is said and done however, he was convicted and sentenced for something that should never have been a crime in the first place. We simply cannot, as a law abiding people, punish people for things we know they did but cannot prove they did. The one case must be separate from the other. Otherwise nobody is safe from fickle and arbitrary prosecution.
Kisses,
JanieBelle
Dream a little dream of me.
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