I think it can safely be said almost everyone is laughing at the stupidity of the California legal system, after Paris Hilton served 3 days in jail, and was released to house arrest & monitoring with an ankle bracelet. The Sheriff's department claims all of this was the result of being informed by a psychiatrist Hilton was having a bad emotional reaction & might have a nervous breakdown.
It seems the City Attorney's office thinks Sheriff Lee Baca has lost his damn mind, and tonight filed a motion to find out why the Sheriff violated the judge's original order that expressly forbid house arrest as an alternative. Hilton is being ordered to appear at a hearing tomorrow, but whether she will be sent back to jail is an open question.
There have been other diaries about this situation, but I thought it might help if it was compared to the Case of Genarlow Wilson in Georgia......
Paris Hilton drove drunk endangering others, was convicted in a court of law and then violated probation. For this she was sentenced to 24 days in jail, of which at present she's only had to do 3.
Genarlow Wilson is twenty-years old, and is now two years into a ten year sentence from the state of Georgia, for receiving consensual oral sex.....
When he was 17 years old and a high school senior, he received consensual oral sex from a 15-year-old, 10th-grade girl. Everyone agreed, including the prosecutor and the girl herself, that she initiated the act.
It was all captured on video — the evidence used to convict him at trial. On the tape, police saw a 15-year-old perform oral sex on one partygoer, and after finishing with him, she turned and did the same to Wilson.
Wilson was an honor student & standout football player at Douglas County High and was being recruited by colleges like Brown & Columbia, but all of that was taken away. Under Georgia law this was considered aggravated child molestation & was subject to a ten year mandatory sentence, since the girl was one year away from the age of consent. Now when I was in high-school, I knew guys that were seniors who dated freshman girls. For that matter, I've known college guys who had high-school girlfriends. However, none of them were hit with this......
He looked at the forewoman. She was crying, seeming to understand they'd just undone a promising future. Indeed, when the jurors found out there was a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence, several were incensed. The prosecution told them to write a letter, then moved on to the next case.
Genarlow Wilson put his head in his hands and wept. Deputies yanked him from his seat. Not long after, Prisoner 1187055 found himself in the predawn darkness, riding in a bus, surrounded not by his teammates but by murderers, thieves and rapists. Some were headed to the penitentiary for the second or third time.
A scared kid looked out the window as the bus chewed up pavement. He didn't know what it was going to be like, only that he didn't want to go.
Wilson's best shot at freedom is for the Georgia legislature to rewrite the new sexual consent law to apply retroactively to his case. But so far he's stuck in a hellish Catch-22. It's a case where almost everyone involved believes his sentence of ten years in the state pen is unfair, but all wash their hands of the situation. The case also seems to have a prosecutor that could have been a character in a Franz Kafka novel. Eddie Barker, the prosecutor assigned to the case, blames Wilson for not taking a plea deal offered to others at the party where this incident occurred, which would have had him sent away for 2-5 years instead of 10, and labeled a sex-offender for the rest of his life.....
"We didn't want him to get the 10 years," he says. "We understand there's an element out there scratching their heads, saying, 'How does a kid get 10 years under these facts?'"
[...]"I understand what he's saying," Barker says. "I think he's making a bad decision in the long run. Being branded a sex offender is not good; but at the same time, if it made the difference between spending 10 years as opposed to two? Is it worth sitting in prison for eight more years, and you're still gonna be a sex offender when you get out?"
Barker is quick to point out that he offered Wilson a plea after he'd been found guilty -- the first time he has ever done that. Of course, the plea was the same five years he'd offered before the trial[...]Barker thinks five years is fair for receiving oral sex from a schoolmate. None of the other defendants insisted on a jury trial. Wilson did. He rolled the dice, and he lost. The others, he says, "took their medicine."
Under Georgia law, the D.A.'s office could end this tonight if they wanted to, if they truly "didn't want" Wilson to receive 10 years in prison. They can ask for the sentence to be set aside. And it would seem that it should be both an ethical & moral imperative for a prosecutor to do that if they believed an injustice was occurring.
But.....
"We can set aside his sentence," Barker says. "Legally, it's still possible for us to set aside his sentence and give him a new sentence to a lesser charge. But it's up to us. He has no control over it."
The position of Barker and the district attorney, [David] McDade, who refused to comment, is that Wilson is guilty under the law and there is no room for mercy, though the facts seem to say they simply chose not to give it to Wilson. At the same time this trial was under way, a local high school teacher, a white female, was found guilty of having a sexual relationship with a student -- a true case of child molestation. The teacher received 90 days. Wilson received 3,650 days.
Now, if Wilson wants a shot at getting out, he must throw himself at the prosecutors' feet and ask for mercy, which he might or might not receive. Joseph Heller would love this. If Wilson would only admit to being a child molester, he could stop receiving the punishment of one. Maybe.
"Well," Barker says, "the one person who can change things at this point is Genarlow. The ball's in his court."
So tonight, as Paris Hilton is sleeping in her West Hollywood home after not being able to deal with the rough 3 days she had to spend in the L.A. County jail system, Genarlow Wilson sits in a jail cell in Georgia looking at another 8 years, a college education and a chance at Football go down the drain because of a consensual blow-job......
Update [2007-6-8 13:35:49 by Rimjob]:
There is a website, WilsonAppeal.com, which has contact info & information on how to help Genarlow Wilson.
Also, thanks to Alegre, here's the contact info for both the District Attorney & prosecutor assigned to this case in Douglas County, Georgia.
Eddie Barker
Firm: Douglas County District Attorney Off.
Address: Douglas County Cthse
6754 Broad St, Room 205
Douglasville, GA 30134-1711
Phone: (770) 920-7292
Fax: (770) 920-7123
David McDade, Esquire, District Attorney
Contact: District Attorney, Douglas Judicial District
8700 Hospital Drive
Main Floor, Douglas County Courthouse
Douglasville, Georgia 30134
Phone: 770.920.7292
Fax: 770.920.7123