Free At Last

The former high school football star imprisoned for having consensual sex with an underage girl has been released from prison.

Genarlow Wilson, 21, was released Friday after the Georgia Supreme Court intervened in his case. In a 4-3 ruling, the court found Wilson's 10 year sentence was cruel and unusual punishment. Wilson has served more than two years of his sentence.

"I'm happy to see that we've got justice now," Wilson said after being released from the Al Burruss Correctional Training Center in Forsyth, Ga. "I'm ready to piece back my life."

Wilson, 17 at the time, was convicted of aggravated child molestation following a 2003 New Years party where he was seen on tape receiving oral sex for a 15-year-old.

Wilson was acquitted of raping a 17-year-old that was intoxicated.

Wilson was imprisoned under a 1995 law that made it illegal to have oral sex with a minor. The law was amended in 2006 to make oral sex between teens close in age a misdemeanor.

However the Supreme Court ruled the 2006 law could not be retroactive.

Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote in the majority opinion that the changes in the law "represent a seismic shift in the legislature’s view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing teenage participants."

Sears wrote that the severe punishment makes "no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment" and that Wilson's crime did not rise to the "level of adults who prey on children."