SB 37 killed by Senate
Neal Boortz was talking about Genarlow Wilson this morning and blasted the State Senate for failing to pass SB 37. Boortz was provided a copy of the tape by Senate Pro-Tempore Eric Johnson. Boortz said something that everyone, especially legislators, should understand...Wilson was convicted of a crime that the legislature has changed the penalties for. He was acquitted of the rape charge. Boortz asked Royal Marshall, his producer, if he'd seen the tape. Marshall said he had and elaborated saying that he did not see aggravated child sodomy.
The argument that Wilson is behind bars because of rape is completely false and has not been recognized by any court. Wilson isn't in jail because of who he associated himself with. He is in jail for ten years because he got a blow job from a girl that two years younger than him. Had he actually had sex with her the sentence would have been much shorter.
Wilson will continue to sit behind bars until at least next year, but I don't expect a different outcome.
It is true that justice isn't blind (or at least it's supposed to be)...apparently the legislature is as well.
Comments
I find it interesting to contrast the Duke Lacrosse incident to the Genarlow Wilson one.
In one, conservative white boys were charged with something they didn't do. People rushed to their defense, before it was even clear whether they were guilty or innocent. They weren't just declaring their right to a fair trial, they were in essence playing the role of judge and declaring that a trial (or process) wasn't even needed.
In Genarlow's case, after a trial court found him not guilty of a crime, the same people that hurried to defend the lacrosse players want to use legal technicalities to keep him in jail for one offense (which he did commit) in order to "pay" for the other offense which the court found him not guilty for.
It would be as if the Duke boys were found guilty of some minor offense like public drunkedness, and people said we don't care that they didn't rape that girl, we want them to get a long sentence for public drunkedness to pay for their other "crimes" even though they didn't even commit them.
Imagine getting a ticket for running a red light where no one got hurt, and the judge essentially said well people die because someone runs a redlight somewhere, so I'm going to lock you up for a year to pay for other's sins. That's essentially what's happened here, and the legislature shamefully tucked this bill in with other controversial bills (SB 43 and others) and then adjourned like pussies before they had to deal with any of them.
Posted by: Outraged | March 28, 2007 06:42 PM
Eric Johnson's op-ed piece in Tuesday's AJC got me riled:
He wrote: "I oppose any legislative effort to require the courts to revisit more than 1100 cases like Wilson's. These predators violated the law. Police arrested them. District attorneys chose to prosecute them. Juries convicted them. The Legislature should not second-guess the process. We did not listen to the testimony or see the evidence."
Notice the criminal procedure step Johnson left out: Judges sentenced them. THAT is the step being questioned. No one's suggesting that Genarlow Wilson be pardoned, or get a new trial. All that's at issue is whether his sentence should be reevaluated and reduced.
And why is Wilson's sentence so long as it is? Because the Legislature second-guessed the process. That's what mandatory-sentencing laws do. Even though the legislature hasn't heard the testimony or heard the evidence, and the judge has, the legislature tells the judge that he is obligated to impose a particular sentence.
SB 37 was a bill about taking the sentencing decision away from the legislature, and putting it back in the hands of the judges who've seen the evidence. It's about STOPPING the legislature from second-guessing the process. And yet Johnson wants to spin it exactly the opposite way.
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