Bill that trapped teen is misused

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This article is not from me, which it looks like it is, but is not.

04/23/2007

In the mid-1990s, as a then-state representative, I introduced a bill designed to increase punishment for the most horrendous of acts against children. It was entitled The Child Protection Act of 1995.

Despite being in the Republican minority, I was close friends with the then-governor, speaker and lieutenant governor, all of whom were Democrats. My bill sailed out of the House and reached the state Senate.

In the Senate the bill hit a snag. The chairperson of the committee to which the bill was assigned wanted a bill to raise Georgia's age of consent from 14 to 16 years of age. Although I am not assigning blame, the bill became victim of the ultimate legislative "Catch 22," in which one bill couldn't pass without the other.

When the bill came to the House floor for final approval, many bright minds such as then-state Rep. Roy Barnes and former Speaker Tom Murphy expressed concerns that young people, much like in the current case of Genarlow Wison, might be sentenced to the harsh 10-year prison term originally intended for blatant and extreme cruelty and abuse of children. Ultimately, most members came to believe that the language was vague enough to give leeway and that no prosecutor would ever so abuse the statute and its true legislative intent.

Years after I left the legislature, I learned certain prosecutors were using the bill as a "catchall" to win cases in which an older teen had consensual sex with an underaged teen. The legislature addressed that problem a few years ago, but the bill was not retroactive for cases like Wilson's.

In Wilson's case, the jury determined he was not guilty of rape. Instead, the underage sex combined with the involvement of oral sex triggered the more stringent portion of the legislation. Sadly, legislators advocating that no relief be given to Wilson and others showed their colleagues an uncensored version of a tape Wilson and his friends made of the "party" at which the sexual encounter occurred. Distasteful and sickening? I would imagine so for those who watched. Irrelevant? Yes. Wilson was cleared of rape by the jury.

Ironically, former Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard, who defeated me in the 1990 general election, joined me in an effort to convince legislators that it was not our intent to send young people to jail for 10 years.

We both feared that many of those prosecuted and convicted under the law often come from disadvantaged or minority homes where the family unit and its guidance is sometimes not available to young men, much less the resources of a strong legal defense.

Apparently there remains some opportunity to review Wilson's case through the judicial process. I want to make it clear that this column is not designed to place unfair pressure on officials who might be involved. I trust they will do what is right in the end.

But for years now, I have tried every way in the world to point out that the ultimate determining factor in applying legislation is the legislative intent. And the Wilson case result was not our intent.

Former state Rep. Matt Towery of Atlanta is a syndicated columnist and CEO of InsiderAdvantage, a political information and polling firm.