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This is reportedly the first time in Georgias history that a high school teen was prosecuted for a felony for having consensual sex. Marcus Dixons Argument Dixon, a 6-foot-6, 265-pound defensive lineman, maintains the sex was consensual. The alleged victim has not spoken to reporters, but her friend, in an interview on HBO/Real Sports, said that the alleged victim consented to the intercourse. Jurors acquitted Dixon of all forcible rape charges, and some later acknowledged that they, too, believed his claim that the sex was consensual. However, the child molestation charge that Floyd County District Attorney John McClellan attached to the case forced jurors to find Dixon guilty based on the law against having sex with someone under 16 years old. Many of the jurors also said later that they were shocked by the severity of the sentence. Some say that Dixons fate was sealed when he, an African American living in the South, ignored an age-old truth: that White women are off-limits. Observers told Real Sports that the father of the alleged victim was an avowed racist. Also, Dixons legal guardians, who are White, reportedly received threats, purportedly from the Ku Klux Klan, about his involvement with a White girl. Dixons attorney, Fred Simpson, looked to have the child molestation charges dropped, mainly because his client was less than three years older than the alleged victim. Simpson contends that the prosecutor tacked on the charge of aggravated molestation as a trump card. In other words, if the state lost on charges of forcible rape and false imprisonment, it would win with the undeniable charge that he had sex with a minor. The latter charge, even without claims of aggravation, provided for a lengthy sentence, under Georgias child protection laws. The judge doesnt have an option on the aggravated child molestation, Simpson told the Atlantic Journal Constitution . I have never seen this before, and Ive tried hundreds of sex-related cases. Dixon attorneys have filed an appeal on the child molestation charge. Dixon was a member of the National Honor Society and scored over 1200 on his SAT. He lost his scholarship to Vanderbilt University and was permanently expelled from high school just one course away from graduation. Prosecution Argument Dixon has been involved in two other sexual incidents, according to Prosecutor McClellan. The first involved a 16-year-old Dixon exposing himself in a classroom;
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