Why is Genarlow Wilson still in jail? Why did Paris get a reduced sentence after getting a DUI?
I am sure many people are guilty of having sex before 18 with someone who was also under 18. Why is a kid serving a 10 year sentence for oral sex? Why can't laws be the same in each state? If laws were the same Paris Hilton would serve as long as others who go to jail for a DUI. Do you think the sen...
I am sure many people are guilty of having sex before 18 with someone who was also under 18. Why is a kid serving a 10 year sentence for oral sex? Why can't laws be the same in each state? If laws were the same Paris Hilton would serve as long as others who go to jail for a DUI. Do you think the sentencing of either person was fair? why or why not?
At the risk of stating the obvious, he’s poor and black and she’s wealthy, white and female. It doesn’t get any more simpler than that.
States have different problems and can pass individual laws.
For instance, in New Mexico it is LEGAL to carry a concealed weapon in your car without a permit (we have low crime rates). In most states it is ILLEGAL to carry a concealed weapon in your car.
This case raises some complicated issues, and it’s unfortunate that the media coverage has been so ridiculously distorted, especially on ESPN.com. Wilson received the statutory minimum sentence for felony aggravated child molestation. He and his four friends rented a hotel room, invited two underage girls over, supplied them with alcohol and marijuana, and brought a video camera so they could re-live their fun afterwards. They all had sex with the 17 year old girl after she had passed out, and they all received oral sex from the 15 year old. The case only came to the attention of the police because the 17 year old woke up disoriented, naked, and still drunk, and called her mother to tell her that she had blacked out and was afraid she had been raped.
Alone among the defendants, Wilson (the owner of the video camera,) refused a plea bargain that would have meant a 2-year sentence, maximum. The jury was shown a videotape of the 17 year old passed out on the bathroom floor, Wilson and his codefendants receiving oral sex from the 15 year old, and all of the defendants having sex with the 17 year old at some later time. After his conviction, the prosecutor offered him the **exact same plea bargain** (absolutely unheard of in criminal cases,) and he again refused.
The evidence was absolutely incontrovertible that Wilson committed the crime of which he was convicted, (receiving oral sex from a 15 year old,) and he received the statutory minimum sentence for that crime. He was unlucky in that sense to be tried in a conservative Southern state that considered oral sex to be more "depraved" than intercourse — and therefore subject to child molestation laws rather than more lenient statutory rape laws.
But in another sense, he may have been lucky to have committed his crime in a conservative Southern state, where he was more likely to find a jury that would think the 17 year old consented to sex by getting drunk in a hotel room with a bunch of boys. Had Wilson been tried in a more progressive state, he would have received a lesser sentence for the oral sex act, but he would have more likely to have been convicted of the gang rape, for which there was plenty of video evidence.
The kid is serving 10 years for oral sex because Georgian lawmakers passed a stupid law in the mid 1990s. They were thinking of an adult having oral sex with a child, not a teen ager with a technical child . (I cannot for the life of me think of a 15 year old as a child. They’re teenagers and have more maturity than "children.")
The laws aren’t the same in each state because penal codes are an issue for the state’s citizens, not a federal issue. What is acceptable in California wouldn’t necessarily be acceptable in Florida and vice versa.
Actually Paris Hilton wasn’t jailed for DUI. In California, a state I live in, a first time DUI offender does not go to jail, unless they injure or kill someone. She was jailed for breaking her probation rules – driving on a suspended license twice.
Last question: Neither was fair. G. Wilson should never have served any prison time. He was a teen having oral sex with another teen. It’s time to stop criminalizing teenage sex.
The LA sheriff testified that an average citizen doing the same thing as Hilton would have received 4 days in jail, not 45. The judge went harsh on Hilton because she’s a celebrity and he wanted to make an example of her.