GA- More sense, please

11-29-2008 Georgia:

Georgia's sex offender laws should differentiate between statutory rape and other sex offenses.

LIKE MUCH legislation, Georgia's sex offender laws also adhere to the law of unintended consequences.

Some issues have been addressed by the General Assembly, mainly as a result of Georgia's courts dialing back the harsh punishments called for under this section of state law.

Take, for instance, the case of Genarlow Wilson. Found guilty of receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Under the same law in effect at the time, had the teen had vaginal sex with the girl, he would have been convicted of a misdemeanor punishable by no more than a year in jail and would not have been subject to the sex offender registry.

Since that case found national attention (and a reprimand from the state Supreme Court), the General Assembly closed the loophole that treated oral sex differently.

The Wilson case highlighted the need to treat statutory rape cases - where the offense centers on age difference - separately from cases in which the offense centers on violence. Indeed, the law treated cases of teen-age misconduct differently, even when Wilson was convicted.

That law should be expanded to include all cases of statutory rape where the victim has testified the offense was not violent, and where the age difference is within a preset range - within three or four years.

Such cases should be treated differently from violent, predatory offenses in sentencing phases, and in the requirements for sex offender registry after a defendant's prison term has been served.

A more recent example of this is the case of Cedric Bradshaw of Statesboro. When Bradshaw was 19, he pleaded guilty to having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

After serving five years, Bradshaw was sentenced to life in prison for twice failing to register his correct address. On Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the sentence, but not the finding of Bradshaw's guilt in failing to register.

The defendant earlier served a six-month sentence for registering under a false address. Upon his release, Bradshaw was forced to move from his sister's home and then from his aunt's house under state provisions banning sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a children's recreation center or a church.

He then gave law officers the address of a family friend who initially said he could move in, but with whom Bradshaw claimed he was unable to establish subsequent contact. The defendant was found to be living with his girlfriend in the interim.

While a penalty may be called for in this case, state Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham rightly noted that someone convicted of voluntary manslaughter could receive a sentence as low as one year - not the 10 years imposed on Bradshaw.

By remanding the case back to a lower court and requiring a new sentence to be established, the high court has again made necessary a fix by the General Assembly. Otherwise, the lower courts will have no legal basis for setting a different penalty.

The legislature's legal fix should include a lesser penalty (if any at all) for failure to register when committed by a person convicted of statutory rape, as opposed to the inherently violent offenses of rape or child molestation.

The purpose of the registry is to protect the public from adult creeps who prey on defenseless children or who would sexually assault an adult. An ill-advised sexual relationship between young people of similar age should not fall into the same category.

In other words, Georgia's law should reflect some common sense. ..News Source.. by Savannah News