Faithful Democrats
The wheels of justice did grind slowly, but grind they did.
In the late 1980s acclaimed film maker Spike Lee released a movie entitled "Do The Right Thing." The movie appealed to the characters to do the right thing socially relative to race, class and societal status. One of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's. most famous quotes ran along the lines of "Though the wheels of justice grind slowly, they grind exceedingly fine." On Friday, October 26, 2007 after two years of the wheels of justice grinding way too slow for Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision did the right thing and freed Genarlow from an unjust ten year prison sentence for aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17 years old. An overzealous Douglas County District Attorney did everything in and out of his power to keep Gernarlow locked up including intimidating the mother of the young lady who was involved in the act. For two years the D.A. got away with his draconian judicial application of justice. After all, this happened in the South and Georgia is still a southern state where southern justice is more often than not meted out by race and class.
As the slow wheels of justice were grinding for Gernarlow, he had a brilliant and determined lawyer in the person of B.J. Bernstein who made sure that the wheels did not stop. He used the writ of Habeas Corpus, which University of Georgia Law Professor Donald E. Wilkes Jr. calls the bulwark of liberty. "The most celebrated writ in the law. The most valuable human right in the Constitution. The great key of liberty to unlock the prison doors of tyranny." She found in the brave person of Monroe County Superior Judge Thomas Wilson(no relation to Genarlow) a man who ordered Wilson's felony conviction reduced to a misdemeanor and simultaneously ordered his release from prison. But the typical "southern justice thingy" happened! In an attempt to kept Wilson locked up Douglas County District Attorney David McDade offered a deal to Wilson, saying he could plead to another felony and receive a 15-year sentence to serve five years in prison with credit for the two years already served. This was a classic case of a southern D.A. gone wild!
Enter a new twist in southern justice: Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, the only African-American State Attorney General in the United States. If anyone in America can understand a black man's struggle with justice in the south, it is certainly his fellow black man. Not in this case! Attorney General Baker's whose "true blackness" has been a topic of discussion since former popular Georgia reformed redneck Democratic Governor Zell Miller appointed him as A.G. in 1994, immediately appealed Judge's Wilson order to the Georgia Supreme Court which meant that Gernarlow might have to remain in jail until the Supreme Court decided to hear his appeal. Want bar-b-que sauce to spice up Baker's southern justice cookout? A Douglas County Superior Court judge who is friends with the Douglas County D.A. which is typical in southern towns denied Genarlow a bond pending appeal.
With this swift turn of events it appeared that the wheels of justice had come to a grinding halt. However, on July 9 the Georgia Supreme Court announced that they were going to expedite Wilson's case and ordered oral arguments on July 20. During these heated oral arguments, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears pointedly asked the state of Georgia "Where is the justice?" That justice would come three months and six days later in a non-fanfare press release by the Georgia Supreme Court.
Writing for the majority Sears said, "Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of ten years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime." Moreover," the majority says, "whether ‘a particular punishment is cruel and unusual is not a static concept, but instead changes in recognition of the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.' Legislative enactments are the clearest and best evidence of a society's evolving standard of decency and of how contemporary society views a particular punishment."
This court did the right thing even though Georgia Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson released a statement that said "This is scarier than Halloween." This is not strange coming from a man who once as Senate Minority Leader draped himself in a Confederate flag at a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Savannah, Georgia.
As justice has finally been served for Gernarlow, there are two people in a judicial position of power who could have helped Gernarlow but instead turned their heads the other way and both are African-American males: State Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton and Georgia Attorney Thurbert Baker. Melton was appointed to the bench by current Georgia Republican Governor Sonny Perdue after serving as his Chief Counsel in the Governor's office. Melton dissented with the other two white justices. In fact he often casts his vote with the conservative wing of the court. Can he be Georgia's version of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? Stay tuned to find out if he wins a full term on the court.
As for Baker, Professor Wilkes sums him up in a guest column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "The [court's]decision also firmly rebukes the hard-line approach of the Georgia attorney general, who unsuccessfully appealed the order of the lower court granting Genarlow habeas relief. To this day, the attorney general has never given a satisfactory explanation of his peculiar decision to take that appeal, although he has given several implausible ones. He has never acknowledged that whether to appeal was entirely a matter of his discretion; much less has he offered a credible explanation for the way he exercised that discretion. He must deeply regret that appeal, which totally backfired." This is all that Baker had to say after the court slammed him: "I hope the court's decision will also put an end to this issue as a matter of contention in the hearts and minds of concerned Georgians and others across the country who have taken such a strong interest in this case." Excuse me Thurbert but you helped to cause this contention because you refused to do the right thing!
Not only must black men deal with racist judges and district attorneys in the south but we must also deal with potential Clarence Thomas' who work day and night to keep "old southern justice" alive and well.
Genarlow you are free now thanks to a coalition of four brave black and white Georgia Supreme Court justices who understand that justice must be colorblind and now you must: DO THE RIGHT THING!
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