A Cruel and Unusual Sentence Indeed

TalkLeft - [I]t is ridiculous for the State of Georgia to make Genarlow Wilson serve a minimum of 10 years because, at age 17, he engaged in a consensual act of oral sex with a 15 year old girl. Public outrage caused the Georgia legislature to change the law, but Georgia's courts have refused to apply the change retroactively to save Wilson from an unfair sentence.

Wilson is taking another shot at persuading a court to reduce his sentence by arguing in a habeas petition that 10 years is, under the circumstances, cruel and unusual.

...

Here's the bottom line, as expressed by the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

[T]here is more at stake here than the freedom of one young man. The integrity of Georgia's criminal justice system is on trial, and the world is watching....
All told, Genarlow Wilson has served 32 months in jail. It's time to end this ride and let him go home.