Provocative questions about Georgia sentencing injustice

Thanks to How Appealing, I see that both the New York Times here and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here are discussing Genarlow Wilson (pictured here), the young Georgia man who was “sentenced to 10 years in prison without parole for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party” when he was 17 years old.  The Times article details that Mr. Wilson is an “honor student and the first homecoming king at Douglas County High School” and that he has already served nearly two years in prison.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution rightly says in an editorial that the “legal system must stop offering Genarlow Wilson condolences and start giving him justice.”

Upon learning more about this case, I cannot help but ask a number of provocative questions:

1.  Had Wilson been white, would he even had been charged with this offense, let alone sentenced to 10 years imprisonment?

2.  Had Wilson been white, would the Georgia legislature have made its subsequent change in the law retroactive to give Wilson the more sensible justice all others will now receive?

3.  Had Wilson committed his offense in other state, could he have even been sentenced to the 2 years he has already served, let alone received the 10-year prison term he is still serving?

4.  Doesn’t this story sound like one we might hear from some repressive foreign country, and not from a state in a country that supposedly prides itself on liberty and freedom?

5.  Can anyone make a reasoned argument for keeping this honor student in prison any longer?

Some prior posts posing additional questions:

• Why isn’t the severe Georgia sentence constitutionally problematic?
• A Georgia case calling for executive clemency?
• Time for a common-person approach to the Eighth Amendment

UPDATES:  I add nuance to my questions in this post, and I have now discovered this website asking “Why is Genarlow Wilson in Prison??”