The Case Of State Of Georgia V. Marcus Dixon

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State of Georgia V. Marcus Dwayne Dixon (2003) Marcus Dixon was a highly recruited high school football player. His life suddenly took a tragic turn when he was falsely convicted of raping a 15 year old girl. The elements around his false conviction could have been avoided with some reform to the criminal justice courts system. Dixon initially had many charges against him but were narrowed down to statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. There was much racial disparity surrounding the jury on Dixon’s case, in that the county that Dixon committed his “crime” was a predominantly white population. It can be argued that the jury was not a proper representation of his peers. Along with other factual errors surrounding Dixon’s false conviction, …show more content…

There were claims on the Manton case study that Dixon had prior history of engaging in sexual activity at his high school, which led Dixon to be suspended twice for the prior sexual acts. At the time of this incident, Dixon was 18 years old, and the “victim” was 15 (Manton, 2005). Following this factual information, Dixon at that time claimed that the sexual act was consensual and accused the girl of fabricating the story because of fear of her parents finding out and punishing her for sleeping with a black man (Manton, 2005). Several charges were suggested for Dixon which included: statutory rape, aggravated child molestation, rape, sexual battery, false imprisonment, and aggravated assist (Manton, 2005). Dixon was then acquitted of a majority of the charges and found Dixon guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation (Manton, …show more content…

Wilson argued that after being released from prison, Vanderbilt had long moved on from their initial scholarship offer, and even though being a very great athlete, no major college football program would recruit him Dixon had to settle for a smaller school, and the stigma for being in prison did not stop there. After college it was difficult for Dixon to receive a contract for a National Football League team. For the remainder of his football career he went from team to team and eventually retiring with a Canadian Football League team (Wilson, 2008). There was no doubt much criticisms for his