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HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL Two decisions address 'cruel, unusual punishment' Dear Readers, There are two recent crimi nal law judicial deci sions regarding the concept of “cruel and unusual pun- ishment” that I found interest ing and thought I would share with you. One of these decisions Jim Rockefeller The “Law” man concerns Genarlow Wilson and you have all probably heard about it. To briefly recap the facts of the Wilson case: Wilson, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, was acquitted of rape of a 16-year-old girl but convicted of Aggravated Awareness comes before competency Awareness comes before competency. That’s not only true in the dictionary. I find it to be required when working to build skills in leaders. Forward-looking leaders want to improve the leader ship skills of those under their author ity. Some have tried unsuc cessfully. Others Dennis Hooper Leaders Building Leaders realize they aren’t effective doing it alone. Some antici pate future growth and want the organization to be prepared to handle the addi tional demands. Research indicates that only 10 percent of leader ship development occurs in the classroom or at confer ences. Another 20 percent comes from studying the behaviors and thought pro cesses of bosses, role models, and mentors. A whopping 70 percent of leadership devel opment occurs right on the job. However, that develop ment only occurs if the indi vidual has a willingness to experiment with some dif ferent approaches. For most individuals, that requires some changes in perspec tive. If new insights are not established, there is usu ally little motivation to LEUER2 From page 4A Check this out: Does Georgia have a tax on food? No, Gov. Zell Miller removed that tax. But look at your receipt next time you buy groceries. Enough is enough, the county raises taxes this year but what they said two WALKER From page 4A was that I should “always choose my friends by their hearts.” If I had known Jeff longer and under different cir cumstances, I suspect I could have called him “friend.” Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Pete RESOLVED From page 4A us to make sure that they receive the best care pos sible. And those who have been deployed repeatedly to the Middle East receive the same lasting respect and gratitude that the sol diers of World War II did. The wars may change, but those who put them selves in harm’s way for their nation are always due our respect, our gratitude and our support. Child Molestation involving a 15 year-old girl. The mini mum sentence was 10 years in prison without parole, which he received. In addition, Wilson would be labeled a sex-offender for the rest of his life. Today, an adult convicted of the same crime would actually have faced an even stiffer minimum penalty (25 years without parole). The act Wilson commit ted was having oral sex per formed on him. All of the evidence suggests that the girl involved did so consen sually. The teenagers were all partying in a hotel room for New Year’s Eve and they had all been drinking alco hol. Prior to his conviction, Wilson was an honor roll student and star athlete. He do something different in building skills. Individuals “who don’t know and don’t know that they don’t know” are usually unwilling to put much effort into improving. Those individuals are both unaware and incompe tent. You may immediately think of the unemployed or under-employed. However, otherwise capable leaders are sometimes victims of deception in specific skill areas, unaware of their igno rance. Your initial challenge is to raise their awareness, helping them see the huge opportunity they have for making enhancements. If you can successfully cause some paradigm shifts, the person moves quickly to the aware yet incompe tent category. These indi viduals have new insights on the potential contributions they could be making. For most, this new hunger stim ulates a desire to learn and improve. They realize that acquiring new skills will be good for them, their organi zation, and their customers. Individuals who seek edu cation and practice new skills move slowly into the aware and competent category. They are capable and can explain what they do to achieve an outcome. They make good role models - that is, you can learn from them by watching what they do. They also make good mentors. When asked why they choose particular behaviors, they are able to years ago was if you vote for a SPLOST your taxes won’t increase. Give me a break and if my eyesight is still good then I notice ALL the commission ers voted for the increase. Now those that have said in the past they never voted for a tax increase can no longer say that. Houston County and the Note: Pete Donaldson is the grandson of Dr. Pete Donaldson, who was at one time the President of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Pete is an outstanding criminal defense attorney in Albanya, and because of his kind- Jte 4 (Inside THE DESIGN GALLERY) wflpD 107 South Corder Road, Warner Robins Entertaining for the Holidays? Dress up the dining room with a new chandelier during chandelier trade-in days m ip* w wmt Bring in your old chandelier and trade it in for 15% off any chandelier in stock or on a special order chandelier with this ad. 478-322-0069 (ALL TRADE-IN'S DONATED TO SALVATION ARMY) (ft had never been in trouble with the law before this inci dent. This case became a politi cal hot potato and some of the leading proponents for the strict amendments to our sex offender statutes testified before the Georgia Legislature to try and undo such a result in the future. In 2006, after Wilson had exhausted his appeals, the acts for which he was con victed were made a misde meanor (because of the ages of the two consenting par ties) and the black mark of being called a “sex offender” was removed from convic tions for such acts. Unfortunately, these more lenient provisions concern ing teenager sexual experi mentation were expressly not made “retroactive.” provide helpful, descriptive explanations. The final category includes individuals who are comfort able with their current capa bilities, yet often have great capacity for performance increases. They are compe tent yet unaware. Some of these individuals are blessed with inherent talent, such as gifted athletes or a “natural born leader.” These individuals may be good role models, but they typically make poor men tors. They have difficulty explaining whv and how they do what they do. This limits their ability to build the capacity of their orga nizations. Failing to realize the need for future leaders is a significant blind spot. So how can you, a leader in your organization, build your organization’s capacity for the future? ■ Increase the value placed on “leadership devel opment” in your organiza tion. ■ Realize that you have blind spots. Welcome and encourage feedback, so that you are more aware of your personal opportunities for improvement. ■ Build your own lead ership development plan and share it with those you influence. ■ Create an environment that fosters self-awareness. Encourage new insights by providing feedback to indi viduals and offering group sessions to reflect on recent victories and losses. surrounding municipalities have a chance next year to take back their government and their right to fair and impartial government. Let’s do just that and send a message to those that get their names ors bridges and the developers that we won’t play by their rules anymore. - Wayne Overholt, Warner Robins nesses to Jeff, is now our friend. Thanks, Pete, for your wonderful words which will mean much to many, and thanks for allowing me to share them. Pete’s e-mail address is gpdonaldson@perrywalters. com. OPINION This almost always hap pens when criminal laws are amended. What this means is that the more sane treat ment of sex between teenag ers only applied to crimes committed in the future, not to those already sentenced. This meant that Wilson would continue to serve his prison sentence, but if he did the same thing today, he could receive as little as one-hour of probation and be done with it. Last session, the Legislature tried to undo this inequity. But in the spot light of public condemnation of sex offenders, our elected officials could not take the heat of doing the humane thing to undo a roundly per ceived “wrong.” In Monroe County, ear lier this year, a courageous ■ Personally and organi zationally, welcome and cel ebrate paradigm shifts. Has your organization become satisfied with “good enough”? Becoming a leader of leaders requires a major paradigm shift. When you embrace it, many opportuni ties unfold before you! Dennis Hooper is a certi fied leadership development coach, helping leaders build organizations of excellence and future leaders. Contact Dennis at dhooper2@juno. com or at 478-988-0237. 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Macon Building Center 6255 Zebulon Road #230 Macon, GA 31210 478-474-9070 1-800-NewHouse AmericasHomePlace.com ® >56130, Superior Court Judge right ed matters and ruled that Wilson was entitled to be treated as a misdemeanor offender, as it was “cruel and unusual” to have this distinction, merely due to the date of offense. It is in this context that Wilson’s case arrived on the steps of the Georgia Supreme Court. In the other recent devel opment, Judge Bryant Culpepper, Jr. (Bibb County) reached a similar conclu sion. He was forced to sen tence a man to 25 years in prison, without parole, for kidnapping his girlfriend and her children (whom he did not even place in the car) and driving them to the interstate, so he could leave town. Late last month, rely LETTER 1 From page 4A And lastly, when are they going to finish restriping the entire road? The white shoulder stripe (fog line) has not been done like there used to be on the old road. Also, the Langston Rd., intersection has NO striping marking the lanes. Is this going to be another example of Houston County “good ‘ol boy politics”? They let the contracts but don’t enforce them. I wish all of the County Commissioners would ride down Lake Joy Rd., and look at the mess the contractors left, including the filthy new road surface and trashed driveways from all the dirt. If there is a plan to complete the project, maybe the contract should require the contractor to complete it before they move on to a new job. As I said, this has got to be the shoddiest road paving project I have ever seen. Welcome to the 21st century in Houston County. James Adams, Perry F. Dennis Hooper Certified Leadership Development Coach Building leaders and organizations of excellence (478) 988-0237 FREE FIREPLACE $3» SHU VALUE' Offer Available Until 11/30/07 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2007 ♦ 54338 dhooper2@juno.eom' AM E F R pLACE Custom Home Builders ing on the reasoning from Wilson’s appeal, Judge Culpepper ruled this man datory sentence “cruel and unusual.” Why did he do it? Do these decisions mark a trend? We’ll explore these questions next week, as we look at the intersection of legislative fiat and judicial discretion, when it comes to sentencing decisions. Local attorney Jim Rockefeller owns the Rockefeller Law Center and is a former Houston County Chief Assistant District Attorney and a former Miami Prosecutor. E-mail confidential legal questions to ajr@rockefellerlawcenter. com. Visit www.rockefeller lawcenter.com for Frequently Asked Questions and Jim’s blog, The Rockefeller Report. WANT NEWS? GOTO hhjnews.com 5A