St. Louis CofCC Blog

The reason I ask is that a black man convicted of a very similar crime due to very similar circumstances is getting out, courtesy of the Georgia State Supreme Court.

UPDATE 10/27: A reader, “Joe,” wrote in and pointed to the Georgia State Supreme Court opinions on their decision to free Genarlow Wilson. The majority opinion cited the Joshua Widner case, and the Justices in the majority opinion decided that the Widner case was irrelevant to the Wilson case, because after Wilson’s “indiscretion,” the Georgia legislature changed the law to allow for a three-year difference between the partners without it being defined as statutory rape. Widner was 18 years 6 months old, and his partner was five days short of her 14th birthday, at the time of their “indiscretion,” yielding a difference of four years six months. Even as the Court’s rationale to free Wilson was contorted, and wreaks of judicial activism, they themselves recognized that they couldn’t legally apply it to Widner’s case. Frankly, if the Court were so concerned about the law, they shouldn’t have freed Wilson, because the same changes in the law made by the legislature were not applied retroactively. (Though I do find it suspicious that the legislature did change the law in such a way that it would just so happen not to make any future acts like Wilson’s a crime, but they didn’t change it in such a way to decriminalize acts like Widner’s.)

If both Wilson and his girlfriend, and both Widner and his girlfriend, lived in Missouri, (and Widner would have waited five days), neither man would have committed statutory rape at the time of their indiscretions. However, if Widner and his girlfriend would have stayed together indefinitely, they could relate up until his 21st birthday, but after that, there would be about a six-month time period after he would turn 21 where he could not touch his then-16.5 year old girlfriend — he would have to wait until she turned 17. Statutory rape in Missouri is defined as anyone who touches anyone else under 14, or anyone 21 or older who touches anyone under 17.