Posted November 12, 2003--Instead of playing his first season on the Vanderbilt football team, Pepperell High School student Marcus Dixon is in the Georgia State Penitentiary serving a maximum 15-year sentence.

Dixon, 18, was arrested Feb.13, 2003, charged with raping a 15-year-old girl on the school's campus three days earlier. Other charges included imprisonment, sexual battery, aggravated assault and child molestation.

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This is reportedly the first time in Georgia's history that a high school teen was prosecuted for a felony for having consensual sex.

Marcus Dixon's 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 Dixon's fate was sealed when he, an African American living in the South, ignored an age-old truth: that White women are off-limits.

Throughout the ordeal, the matter of race could not be ignored.  Observers told Real Sports that the father of the alleged victim was an avowed racist. Also, Dixon's legal guardians, who are White, reportedly received threats, purportedly from the Ku Klux Klan, about his involvement with a White girl.

Dixon's 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 Georgia's child protection laws.

"The judge doesn't have an option" on the aggravated child molestation, Simpson told the Atlantic Journal Constitution. "His hands are tied. I have never seen this before, and I've tried hundreds of sex-related cases."

Dixon attorneys have filed an appeal on the child molestation charge. The Georgia Supreme Court will hear the case in January 2004.

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; in the second, he "inappropriately touched" a 14-year-old student when he was 17.

In the most recent case, a nurse testified that the alleged victim sustained vagina bruising and a torn hymen. Although, the victim's statement revealed that she was a
virgin at the time of the sexual encounter, which some say could explain the injuries, it could not have helped Dixon's image.

Since Dixon was 18-years-old when the incident took place, he could be charged with aggravated child molestation -- which involves a physical injury sustained by the victim due to the sexual act.

What do you think? Was Dixon given too harsh of a sentence based on his crime? Do you think he has a case for his appeal?