The good fight

I've often said that if I won the lottery tomorrow I would do nothing but death penalty appeals work. People ask me why, and I say that I can think of nothing greater that I could do with my law degree than use it to actually save someone's life.

We lowly bloggers rarely get the chance to do much more than possibly break an interesting story a few days before the regular media. We might gain notoriety for a day or two nationally, or at least a momentary blip on the radar of public consciousness. But most of us who do this do it because we like to write, need a place to do it, and enjoy the public dialogue. Some aspire to more, be it journalistic standards, political influence, or parlaying it all into a book deal.

But very very few of us will ever do what some folks around these parts have actually done today: affect the course of justice, and improve someone's life for the better. While the Georgia Supreme Court is the body that has finally freed Genarlow Wilson, it is only as a result of the public campaign to bring to light the injustice of his sentence, the dastardly deeds of his district attorney, and the inexcusable failure of the legislature to right a wrong and release this man from prison that has brought the case to the forefront of public conscience and forced the Court's hand. That campaign, while achieving some moderate coverage in the press before this year, did not actually mature until the story began receiving considerable coverage by local bloggers, and was then picked up by national bloggers and the mainstream media.

It is interesting that this morning when I heard the news, I immediately with almost reflexive speed called Griftdrift who is travelling down in Florida and away from the internet. I was prepared to read him the news stories, but was surprised to find that he was watching it on CNN. Shows how powerful old media is to my generation--I never even thought for a second that you could find this story on the teevee. I presumed the internet was the only place that would have it right now. I guess in my mind I just associate this story so much with the internet, with the blogosphere and with the concerted push that local Georgians made to beat the drum over and over again until others were forced to listen.

It will be lost in the coverage of Wilson's release, as it probably should be, but the people who pushed this story have done a great thing by helping to bring about justice. I hope they recognize the rarity of this moment and know that the rest of us are proud of them.