He was released later that day, after serving over 4 years of his 10-year prison sentence in the Al Burruss Correctional Training Center in Forsyth, Georgia.
[7] Additionally, Wilson engaged in sex with a 17-year-old girl, who woke up the next morning naked and disoriented and claimed to have been raped, which triggered an investigation.
[7][8] Police found condoms and evidence of drinking, as well as a video camera with footage of Wilson engaging in the sex acts, in the motel room used for the party.
[7] As the law stands, Wilson would not even have been able to return to his own family after an early release, as he had an 8-year-old sister Jiaya Bennett with whom he would be forbidden contact.
[8] While Wilson's attorneys argued that such a change in the law should reverse his conviction,[11] the Legislature specifically prohibited the bill from being applied retroactively.
David McDade inquired of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia whether the videotape had to be released under the Open Records Act.
"[15] Ignoring the fact that it was the Legislature that wrote the Open Records Law (and which caused the initial controversy by refusing to apply the "Romeo and Juliet" clause retroactively), Georgia State Sen. Emanuel Jones said he would introduce legislation to block district attorneys from handing over photographic images in sex cases.
The prosecutor Eddie Barker, apparently waiting for an admission of guilt, has said "the one person who can change things at this point is Genarlow.
Bernstein, would not accept the proposed deal because it would require her client to plead guilty to a felony with a fifteen-year sentence, forcing him to register as a sexual offender for up to fifteen years.
Douglas County Superior Court Judge David Emerson agreed with McDade, and canceled a scheduled bond hearing.
The first motion was an appeal by the State Attorney General Baker of the Monroe County Superior Court judge's decision to reduce Wilson's felony conviction to a misdemeanor and release him.
The second motion was brought by Wilson's attorneys to have him released on bond while the appeals are heard which the Douglas County Superior Court judge denied.
[25] On October 26, 2007, the Georgia State Supreme Court ruled 4–3 that Wilson's sentence was cruel and unusual, and ordered him released.
Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of ten years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.
[33] On December 21, 2006, The New York Times published an editorial[9] condemning the Georgia Supreme Court's original refusal to hear Wilson's appeal, noting that Wilson was not a sexual predator, and that his behavior would have only been a misdemeanor if he had actually had sex with the girl, instead of having had oral sex (due to a loophole in the applicable law's provision intended to prevent exactly this kind of dubious conviction).
On April 30, 2007, The New York Times published another editorial noting that Georgia's legislature had closed the loophole in the law and that if Wilson were tried today he would now be facing only misdemeanor charges for the same act.
[35] Following the June ruling in Monroe County, both Attorney General Baker and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue expressed concern that other convicted child molesters might attempt similar legal tactics to get out of prison.
Markel Hutchins, a civil rights activist in Atlanta, has criticized them for not having all the facts and failing to stand up for the victims in the case.