What compensation should wrongfully convicted Georgians get?
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A bill that’s cleared the Georgia House but needs the age by the Senate would seek to do the impossible but the necessary — compensate people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes.
Georgia is one of only a dozen states that lack a standardized process for compensating people who’ve spent years or even decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
As of right now, people who have been wrongfully convicted and spent years — or in some cases decades — behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit have to find a legislative sponsor to introduce a resolution, laying out their compensation.
But like many laws introduced under the Gold Dome, many of the resolutions don’t get ed and if they do, some exonerated people see far less than they should.
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“What we can do is try to help them restart their lives, and the way to do that is through money,” said Rep. Scott Holcomb (D-Atlanta), the bill’s sponsor and a former prosecutor. “There’s a lot of disagreement and discord in our country right now, but I don’t think that there’s discord or disagreement over this.”
HB 364 would instead establish a five-member of state officials and criminal justice experts to consider wrongful conviction compensation claims on a standardized basis, fair for everyone without the influence of red tape of politics.
“We can’t give them those years back, but they were convicted on behalf of the people of the State of Georgia and as representatives of the people of the State of Georgia, we have a responsibility to say ‘I’m sorry,’ and to do something about it,” said Rep. Carolyn Hugley (D-Columbus).
Lawmakers are running short on time though — the 2024 legislative session ends next Thursday.
“We right wrongs here every day and why we are refusing to do so here or even set up a pathway is beyond me,” said Rep. Stacey Evans (D-Atlanta). “And it’s high time that we act.”
For exonerated Georgians like Lee Clark, who received a life sentence in 1996 for the murder of a friend that he didn’t commit, there’s no real compensation for a fate he described as “like death itself.” Clark lost 25 years of his life behind bars as an innocent man.
“That’s a really hard topic to ask me about because, I mean, that’s like asking a man what his life’s worth,” Clark said getting emotional. “The number I’d like to throw out there for what I went through, for the years I went through and the nightmare I went through, they wouldn’t want to hear that number.”
Clark feels HB 364 would be a good step towards justice for people in his position. He’s still waiting for his legislative-sponsored resolution to , where he’s requesting $1.8 million from the state.
The new legislation would entitle wrongfully convicted people to between $50,000-$100,000 for each year of their wrongful incarceration.
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