Genarlow Wilson was 17 years old, a bright, black student heading for college, when he was videoed at a New Year’s Eve party receiving consensual oral sex from a girl of 15.

Since then he has served more than two years in prison, part of a mandatory minimum ten-year sentence for an act which under Georgia state law at the time was regarded as “aggravated child molestation”.

Today a judge is expected to rule on the latest effort to quash the sentence. Supporters point out that if Wilson had had sexual intercourse with the girl, he would have fallen under Georgia’s “Romeo and Juliet” exception. Instead, the oral sex he engaged in four years ago fell into a legal loophole – since closed – designed to catch paedophile predators.

The case has been complicated by racial overtones in this part of the Deep South. The former president Jimmy Carter wrote to the state attorney-general last month complaining about the “disproportionate nature” of Wilson’s sentence.

“The racial dimension of the case is likewise hard to ignore,” he said, citing evidence that “white minor defendants in the same circumstances as Mr Wilson’s receive far lesser forms of punishment”.

The sentence has been denounced by the jury that convicted him, as well as the author of the 1995 legislation that put him behind bars.

“The law was designed to protect kids against really, really bad people doing very bad things,” Republican Matt Towery said. “It was never intended to put kids in jail for oral sex.”

After jurors learnt about the ten-year sentence, there was “mayhem in the jury room”, Marie Manigault, the forewoman said. “We were in tears. There was screaming.”

Prosecutors in Atlanta have argued that subsequent changes in the law cannot be applied retrospectively. They had offered him a plea bargain that would have reduced his sentence but left him on the sex offenders register.

Wilson has rejected such an option, saying in a prison interview: “When I see my name in the paper and I see aggravated child molestation, it’s kind of hard to cope with – I want to see my record cleared so I can go to school, so I can have a good life.”

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