Atlanta ? A former high school football star who became a national symbol for the extremes of getting tough on sex offenders was ordered released from prison Monday by a judge who called his mandatory 10-year sentence for consensual teen sex “a grave miscarriage of justice.”

But the joy felt by Genarlow Wilson’s family rapidly turned to disappointment as Georgia’s attorney general announced he would appeal, a move that will keep the honor student behind bars for now.

Wilson’s sentence was widely criticized as being too severe, even by members of the jury that convicted him and the author of the 1995 law that put him behind bars.

His case became a cause celebre that grew from local blogs and TV stations to national news shows and editorial pages. Some supporters, including former President Jimmy Carter, have said it raised questions about race and the criminal justice system. Wilson and five other males charged in the case are black, as are the two teenage girls involved.

“As far as I’m concerned, this case is a throwback to Southern justice,” said state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat.

Wilson, homecoming king of his school, has served more than two years of a mandatory 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation. He was captured on videotape having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2003 when he was 17.

If the sentence stands, he would also be placed on Georgia’s sex offender registry.

At the time of his crime, Wilson would have faced just one year in prison if he had sexual intercourse with the girl. The “Romeo and Juliet” exception for young lovers in Georgia law also would have allowed him to avoid the sex offender registry.

Lawmakers last year voted to close that loophole. But the state’s top court said the new law could not be applied retroactively to Wilson, now 21.