And another Bengals update...

Troubled Bengals receiver Chris Henry is trading in his tiger stripes for prison stripes for two days. According to an AP report the receiver "was sent to jail for two days on Thursday after pleading guilty to allowing minors to drink alcohol in his hotel room last spring."
Henry appears to be the Bengals' teflon player, having avoided significant jail time while pleading guilty in three previous criminal cases.
In the lastest case, according to the report, "Henry originally was charged in Covington with three counts of unlawful transaction with a minor. Police said he brought alcohol for three females -- ages 18, 16 and 15 -- in a Covington motel room April 29. One of the three, Monica Beamon, 18, was charged with murder in Cincinnati last September."
Lovely company he keeps.
Henry was sentenced in this case to 90 days, but the judge suspended all but two. For his repeated transgressions on this as well as drug and weapons charges combined he has been sentenced to a total of 120 days, only two of which he is spending in a jail, two years probation, and 100 hrs of community service, the equivalent of 12.5 business days working a standard eight hour shift.
Meanwhile a 20 year old man is serving ten years (see last post) in a Georgia prison for having consensual sex when he was a minor with another minor. Something isn't right here

I'm not normally political here, but for this I'll make an exception...

In decision after decision the Supreme Court of the United States has held that the implication of the statement, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," from the Declaration of Independence applies to all United States citizens regardless of race or gender. It has, in the past, been used as reason to grant asylum to those seeking refuge from religious and political persecution in their own country in the name of Justice.
It's a shame we can't get it right in our own country.
Let me start by saying, free Genarlow Wilson NOW.
Wilson a former star high school football player and honor student in Georgia is now two years into a mandatory ten year prison sentence with no chance of parole for child molestation for receiving oral sex from a 15 year-old girl when he was 17. The girl, in every account, including the account given by the girl's mother to the court in Wilson's case, was the one who initiated the action. Film even exists of the act.
Read the article on Wilson - it details some serious inequities that have been perpertrated by the state of Georgia, including the following; "The position of Barker and the district attorney, McDade, who refused to comment, is that Wilson is guilty under the law and there is no room for mercy, though the facts seem to say they simply chose not to give it to Wilson. At the same time this trial was under way, a local high school teacher, a white female, was found guilty of having a sexual relationship with a student -- a true case of child molestation. The teacher received 90 days. Wilson received 3,650 days."
Somehow I have a hard time believing that this is fair and equal treatment under the law. The Georgia Supreme Court called him, "a promising young man," and left him languishing in jail. I have a hard time reconciling their statement with their action.
The prosecutor in the case would be willing to let Wilson walk if he pleads guilty, thus relegating Wilson to a brand and national database that are a disservice and an inaccurate classification of the young man. The database is meant as a resource to inform parent of a menace to their children. That is not Wilson.
While I commend ESPN for writing this article, with the resources that the company has at hand I would like to think that the world wide leader in sports coverage is going to give this story more than ink. I think this story demands air time.
If ESPN could give a self-serving reality show to bore such as Barry Bonds, isn't then the socially and journalistically responsible thing to do to give Wilson some of that same self-serving air-time. After all they are a member of the Fourth Estate - the unofficial branch of the government that is supposed to be the watchdog that keeps things like this from happening.


On a somewhat related note, I would hope that if Wilson's lawyer, BJ Bernstein, can get him off, that the colleges that were once recruiting him will keep their offers open.