aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Jury still out on Genarlow
Two years ago today, Marie Manigault rose in a Douglas County courtroom to announce a verdict that she now regards as a terrible injustice: “We, the jury, find the defendant, Genarlow Raevion Wilson, guilty of aggravated child molestation.”
That verdict sentenced Wilson to 10 years in prison without possibility of parole; he is serving that time at the Burruss Correctional Training Center in Forsyth and will carry the label of sex offender for life. “Genarlow needs to be home with his family,” says Manigault now. “He should have been home with his family from the beginning.”
Manigault’s statements call into question what the DA and Senate leader Eric Johnson have been saying about the jury verdict. The story ends on the question of race:
“I have been reluctant to say any racism has been involved,” says B.J. Bernstein, Wilson’s attorney. “But at a certain point you have to ask how many white kids with a 3.2 GPA, who could have been in a good college, would have gotten this much hard time?”
I have to say I’ve wondered that myself.
