Jim Crow Lives

And it flourishes in The Land That Time Forgot (further proof here), which constitutes the vast majority of the state of Georgia and too much of the South in general.

I try to stay out of stories involving crime and punishment since this blog would get filled up pretty quickly if I did and I wouldn’t be able to post on anything else, but this is a particularly egregious case.

This tells you the story of Genarlow Wilson (pictured), a high school scholar-athlete who was on his way towards a college scholarship, and I say was because he has been convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for a youthful indiscretion (the following information from the NAACP describes the case in detail, in addition to the ABC News story)…

Less than two years ago, Genarlow Wilson was an African American scholar-athlete. He maintained a 3.2 GPA and had multiple offers for college football scholarships.

Sign the petition to free Genarlow now!

Today. Genarlow Wilson is twenty-three months into a ten-year prison term mandated by a Georgia law for the “crime” of consensual oral sex with a fellow high school student. A Georgia court convicted Genarlow Wilson of aggravated child molestation.

Though Genarlow and the female student were only 2 years apart in age, the high school female student, who was 3 weeks from her 16th birthday, admitted to initiating the sexual act. Genarlow, however, was convicted and sentenced under a law meant to penalize adult child molesters. Unless justice is served, he will be forced to carry the label of “sexual predator” for an act engaged in by more than half of all American high school-aged boys.

There is a double standard at play in the sentencing of Genarlow Wilson. Around the same time that Genarlow was sentenced, a high school teacher was convicted of having sex with a student. The white female teacher was sentenced to just 90 days in the same Georgia courthouse that sentenced Genarlow to 10 years.

The NAACP has made a formal request to both Governor Sonny Perdue and Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Preston Smith, to pass and sign Senate Bill 37 into law. Senate Bill 37 will allow trial judges to review and modify the sentences of individuals, like Genarlow, who have been harshly sentenced under the antiquated Georgia law.

Let it be known that you are outraged at the decision to throw away the life of this promising young man for reasons that defy logic, and demand restitution (please note the talking points in this letter).

Sign the petition to free Genarlow now!

For more information about the campaign to Free Genarlow Wilson, please contact me at: 410-580-5762 or jjackson@naacpnet.org.

Sincerely,
Dr. John Jackson
NAACP Chief Policy Officer

So let's totally stigmatize this kid's life full of promise over some adolescent stupidity in the name of a legal interpretation that belongs to the legacy of Bull Connor, attack dogs and "white" vs. "colored" water fountains.

To digress briefly, I just read an excellent (and scary) article on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times about witness intimidation in Essex County, NJ, including the city of Newark, which has resulted in about 14 unprosecuted murder cases. I realize Newark is a completely different locale, but something is wrong in a major way when we prosecute honor students in this country for a consensual “crime,” but let drug dealers and gang members accused of capital murder offenses wander free (aided in no small part by gangsta rap “artists” who discourage witnesses from coming forward).

Update 11/01/07: This is wonderful news...

On Friday afternoon (10/26), just hours after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that his sentence amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, Genarlow Wilson was released from prison.

In 2005, Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old star athlete and top student, was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old classmate. The NAACP has been involved in the Wilson case since 2003, when the youth was initially charged with rape, working with both the Georgia legislature and the judicial system to free Genarlow.

He had been incarcerated for almost three years of a ten-year sentence, even though only months after his conviction, a "Romeo and Juliet" law was passed that would have had a maximum allowable sentence of 12 months. Genarlow remained incarcerated until Friday in spite of June decision by a Monroe County Superior Court judge to void the original sentence on constitutional grounds and reduce it to one year.

Cases like Genarlow Wilson, Marcus Dixon, and the Jena 6 highlight the rampant discrimination against African-American youth that exists in our criminal justice system. The NAACP is committed to doing whatever is necessary to see justice served in these cases and the hundreds of others, as well as working to reform the judicial system so that our youth are afforded the dignity, respect and equal treatment they deserve under the law.
Sincerely,

Dennis Hayes
Interim President & CEO, NAACP

Here's more.