Genarlow Wilson on MSNBC -live

[malaise]

press conference. GSC says cruel and unusual punishment.
Free at last.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Thank heavens!

I was 17 with a 15 year old GF a LONG time ago (hell - when I was 17!:D that was 25 years ago, and I looked HOT in my parachute pants! :D:D) Wilson has been persecuted because of his race, IMHO...:grr:

[malaise]

2. That simple

and of course he was an honor student.

How dare that black boy excel in school -play football and do well in academic subjects. Know your place young man :sarcasm:

[Cooley Hurd]

4. That's really the vibe I got from it...

[aikoaiko]

5. I don't think it was that simple.

First, let me say that I glad he is free.

He was prosecuted because one of the other girls he had sex with that night, a Black girl, said she was so drunk when they had sex that she was raped (Wilson would be acquitted of the rape charge). When police investigated they found the video tape of Wilson and friends having sex with the drunk 17 year old and sober 15 year old. By all accounts the drunk girl was "sleepy" looking and she wanted Wilson and friends charged with rape -- which he was. The aggravated sodomy charge (oral sex with an underage girl, even consensual) was almost impossible to avoid because it was on the tape Wilson made.

Even the prosecutor wasn't thrilled with the sentence and offered Wilson plea deals, but they still involved jail time and registration.

Of course the real discrimination came when the GA legislators would not allow the new law, which would charge people like Wilson with a misdemeanor and not be on the registry, to be retroactively applied to Wilson explicitly.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. I am glad it is over with.

But it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Genarlow, next time...lose the digital camera. :)