TONIGHT
E-mail a friendJuanessa Bennett, B.J. Bernstein
original airdate June 19, 2007
Juanessa Bennett is the mother of Genarlow Wilson, a high school honor student in Georgia who's been imprisoned since February '05 for aggravated child molestation—he had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. B.J. Bernstein is Wilson's criminal defense attorney, recognized as one of the top 50 female lawyers in Georgia. Wilson's conviction, mandating a 10-year sentence, was recently voided by a judge. However, the prosecutor in the case has filed an appeal, and a hearing has been scheduled for July.
Juanessa Bennett, B.J. Bernstein
Tavis: Juanessa Bennett is the mother of Genarlow Wilson who's currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Georgia following his controversial conviction for aggravated child molestation back in 2004. His crime? Having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he, in fact, was just 17. Despite the news last week that a judge ordered Genarlow's release, the decision was quickly appealed and now this case heads to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Juanessa Bennett joins us tonight from Atlanta along with the attorney in the case, B.J. Bernstein. Ms. Bennett, nice to have you on the program.
Juanessa Bennett: Nice to be on the program, and thank you so much.
Tavis: It's my pleasure. Attorney Bernstein, nice to have you on as well.
B.J. Bernstein: Good evening. A lot to talk about here.
Tavis: Indeed, and let's try to do it in 12 minutes. Let me start with you, Ms. Bernstein, and ask you to give for me - I know the case, but for those who don't know the case in particular, the details, at least, give me in short order what has happened to Genarlow. Take me back to when this case came to light.
Bernstein: Well, when this case started Genarlow was 17 years old, and he and his buddies rented a hotel room for New Year's Eve. And there was girls, there was alcohol, and there was marijuana at the party. And there was sex. And the next morning, one of the young women who was 17 had claimed - she said to her mother, "I think I was raped."
So the police got involved, searched the hotel room, and found a videotape that included that sexual encounter plus a consensual act of oral sex with a 15-year-old. Genarlow said, "I'm not a child molester, I am not a rapist." A jury saw this videotape and he was acquitted of rape. But the way Georgia law was written at the time, the jury had no choice but to convict him because it's just like an automatic thing. If the girl's underage and the guy's over even 17 years old at the time, that was a felony that carried 10 years, no early release, and sex offender registry.
So we've been fighting it ever since. Because of Genarlow's case, we were actually able to get the law changed so that no other child in Georgia has to endure what Mrs. Bennett had to go through with her son Genarlow. Yet still we're fighting and fighting. We finally got a judge last week to agree with us that it's cruel and unusual punishment, ordered his release, and yet then the attorney general has appealed.
Genarlow still sits in prison now over 28 months later for what the mother of the girl just came out again and reminded all of us last week, absolutely a consensual act.
Tavis: So you essentially have, then, as you just put it, two minors engaging in consensual sex and Genarlow ends up serving 10 years in prison. So now that the judge orders him released last week, the attorney general appeals it in the state of Georgia. It's sent to the Supreme Court. Tell me where we are tonight as we sit with regard to the case.
Bernstein: Well, we're waiting for a bond hearing on July fifth. The district attorney's office has not agreed to a bond, even though the attorney general of Georgia says he has no objection. I just saw Genarlow in prison yesterday. He remains there at a minimum to July fifth, and then we have briefings scheduled with the court in July and probably not have oral argument till October.
Tavis: Ms. Bennett, let me ask you to tell me about your son, because Ms. Bernstein tells us, of course, that this case comes to light because of the finding of a videotape. There's alcohol, there's marijuana, there is sex. Your son is on the tape, engaging in sex, although consensual. Tell me about your son, because I suspect there's some watching right now who are saying that doesn't sound like a model young African American male.
Bennett: No, it doesn't, and he was under the influence, which that's not normal in my household, either. It's nothing I can say but that he had behaved badly, and this is not the way that I raised him. He was with other peers, and I don't know whether he initiated or he was encouraged, but he did do it, I'm not denying that.
I'm just saying that sentence was a little too stiff, because he was not - he was acting like I've seen other teenagers act. A couple of talk shows I've watched where you have young girls who just say that they just enjoy doing this thing - doing oral sex, just performing it. They have parties, parties gone wild. You got "Girls Gone Wild," you got the spring break events, so on and so forth.
And teenagers feel like they want to be like the other college students and do these type of things. Now, I'm not saying that it was okay, that's not the way I raised him. But trust me, he made some very poor judgments on that particular night, and he has since then regretted it deeply.
Tavis: Tell me about the flip side of him. I was just saying to an audience the other day, not talking about this particular case but saying to an audience the other day that the sum of an individual, the S-U-M - I mean, the S-O-M-E, the some of an individual is not the sum, the S-U-M, of an individual. So that a particular part of our behavior on any particular day is not the sum total of who we are as human beings.
So Genarlow got caught up in it on this particular night, but tell me beyond this evening about your son and what he's like in school and athletically and otherwise.
Bennett: He had never been in trouble, he was first ever Douglas County Homecoming King. He was prom prince; he was highly, highly appreciated at Douglas County High School. He was an athlete, all-conference in football two years in a row, all-conference in track for three years in a row. Fastest ever in Douglas - not ever, but I'm sorry, fastest in Douglas County at the time. Three point two grade average, having all kind of offers coming through the mail to go to college.
He was punished because once again, all kids gonna lie to their parents, but he was not punished to the severity of - that he was in any kind of deep trouble. He's never been in trouble in the law.
Tavis: So never in trouble before, a 3.2 student, all kinds of offers to go to college to play athletics. Fair to say that were he not in jail tonight, he'd be in college somewhere?
Bennett: Probably getting ready to come out of college, exactly.
Tavis: Ms. Bernstein, tell me why when the Georgia legislature, to your point earlier, rewrote this law because the law had an unintended consequence where Genarlow is concerned, they've rewritten the law. If they had rewritten that law retroactively, he wouldn't be in jail tonight, would he?
Bernstein: No, but actually it's a little odd, because the Georgia Supreme Court - the Georgia constitution forbids a direct retroactive law. There has been some discussion about whether a savings clause, which is a technical term in the statute, but remember, when they pass laws, it's not just this one little thing. It was actually part of a giant sex offender bill, redoing the entire sex offender laws in Georgia.
And of course the legislature wanted to be conservative in how they did that to not allow someone to take advantage of a loophole. But very, very clearly, on the floor of the House, when I sat in on the last committee meeting on the last day dealing with the bill that we changed the law, and Genarlow Wilson was mentioned as the inspiration to change it.
Because if you'll remember Marcus Dixon a couple of years ago, the Rome High School 17-year-old. A lot of people get these two cases confused. In that case, the Supreme Court of Georgia warned that Genarlow's situation could happen. It did, in fact, happen, and fortunately for other kids, Genarlow's fixed it. But for him, he still remains behind bars.
Tavis: There are some who say that this case has race all over it. I wonder how you feel about that, Ms. Bernstein, particularly given that Genarlow is Black. He was at 17, he still is. The young woman performing the oral sex act at 15 at the time is Black. The attorney general who's appealed the case is Black. Does race play a part in this case in any way?
Bernstein: Forgive me for the pun, but it's not a black and white form of racism. Rather, it's something more subtle, I think, and a part of it is with the videotape. If you see the videotape, Genarlow at the time, dressed like a lot of our young people do with dreads, he had a little gold tooth, he had on big, baggy clothes, and they were playing rap music.
So that when you watch the tape and particularly, honestly, from the White community, you're sitting there saying, “Whoa, this is everything that I worry about when I see a music video of what's wrong with, or critiques of modern African American society.” So I think that's what went into play in people's ideas and the criticism that we've heard of Genarlow.
It's a much more subtle form than an overt saying, “I hate someone.” But the truth is there are just not [unintelligible] White kids like Genarlow in the precise same position. And when I have had those kids arrested and from a wealthy family or a different part of town - I assure you I've seen it in my own office - the same results don't occur.
Tavis: Ms. Bennett, let me ask you, to that point a moment ago that I made about the attorney general in this case, the attorney general for the state of Georgia being an African American, Ms. Bernstein and the AG were both guests on my radio program on PRI last weekend. And so we had the chance to hear from the attorney general and he said, and I'm paraphrasing here - you can go to our website and get the exact transcript - I'm paraphrasing the AG.
What he essentially said, though - Ms. Bernstein, you'll recall - was that if he could go about this another way, he would. He made it very clear that his personal view of this case was one thing, but as the attorney general elected in the state of Georgia, he had to appeal this decision. He could not let Genarlow walk out because it was a violation of the law.
I'm asking you now, Ms. Bennett, how it feels to have a Black attorney general say personally he feels one way, but he has to follow the law. And your son could have walked last week but for this Black attorney general saying he's going to appeal the case, Genarlow would be home right now.
Bennett: It does not make no sense to me, that statement at all, because the law is for the people and by the people. And he's not representing the people, because the majority feels like he should be a free young man. And he even feels like it. So who was he making the law for?
Tavis: Ms. Bernstein, tell me in 60 seconds here what Jimmy Carter and others are saying about this. This case has gotten everybody involved, practically.
Bernstein: So many different people, different walks of life, from Jimmy Carter to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, to people in business, prominent members of the African American community here in Atlanta, including Dr. Joseph Lowery - all of them have been condemning this. All of them have been saying, “Let it go, drop your notice of appeal.”
We heard his statement, as you said, on your radio show by the attorney general saying this would open a floodgate for 1,300 pedophiles to get out, and that's absurd. Because the only people who can take advantage of this is a very narrow issue in the law dealing with teenagers. And what he's trying to do when he used that language is to trick people to think oh, no, we want to be careful about child molestation.
It is time for our politicians to realize there is a difference between those adult pedophiles who prey on our kids and our own kids. We don't want them to engage in early sex, but the way to fix it is not the criminal laws. And to just throw up your hands - so many people, the legislative, the governor, the attorney general, the Supreme Court already one time has all thrown up their hands saying, “This is really bad, but we can't fix it.” And I just refuse to believe - and it's a justice system. That's what it's supposed to be about.
Tavis: Well, I heard you say July fifth is the date we're looking for. It occurs to me that July fourth, of course, is Independence Day. We will see what July fifth means and brings for one Genarlow Wilson. His mother is Juanessa Bennett, his attorney is B.J. Bernstein. They joined us tonight from Atlanta. Thank you both for your time, and we will look toward July fifth to see what happens in the case. All the best to both of you.
Bernstein: Thank you, and we welcome all of your prayers.
Bennett: Thank you.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program.
Bennett: Thank you.
Back to June 19, 2007