Over the summer, Georgia passed the Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Act, which has been a long-awaited step toward justice for people who lost years of their lives due to wrongful imprisonment.
To qualify for compensation, a person must prove they were factually innocent, not just released or had their conviction overturned. The new law gives wrongfully-convicted Georgians $75,000 for every year they were unjustly incarcerated, with an additional $25,000 per year if they were on death row. This also covers any fines, court fees and other costs associated with the original conviction. Prior to this act being passed, Georgia was one of the few remaining states that did not have a standardized process for the compensation of exonerees. This left many relying on inconsistent legislative solutions or public appeal for assistance. Now, a fair and consistent system is in place. Claims will go directly through the Office of State Administrative Hearings, determining their eligibility and awards for compensation.
This act is no doubt an improvement on what was previously in place. For years, Georgia’s lack of a formal process to compensate the wrongfully convicted embarrassed its justice system. Exonerees that have been let out of prison previously were released with a trash bag full of their belongings and a record that continues to haunt them, all because they got taken advantage of by a faulty system. The state is finally recognizing its past mistakes by introducing this law.
While this first step is definitely forward, it’s quite far from the finish line. Even with fair compensation, rebuilding one’s life after a wrongful conviction is nearly impossible. This act requires exonerees to affirmatively prove their innocence, which is a high bar that many can not meet. This is especially true in cases where evidence was lost, destroyed or improperly handled in the first place. In fact, most people are released based on the fact that old evidence was deemed unreliable, witnesses recanted or prosecutors admitted error, rather than be fully exonerated on new evidence. These individuals may never qualify for payment under this new law, despite suffering the same treatment in prison.
While $75,000 a year may sound generous, it cannot compensate for the years or decades of life lost to imprisonment. Those in prison miss family milestones and a chance at education while leaving prison with trauma that no one can understand – all for a crime they didn’t commit. Other states also offer compensation with money but, more importantly, also supply other forms of support. For example, job training, mental health counseling and housing assistance, have been offered in other states to help exonerees reintegrate into society. This is the least the government can do to support people they’ve taken advantage of.
Unfortunately, time limits threaten the good intentions of the law. Exonerees have only three years to file a claim: an extremely narrow window for people starting their lives over from scratch. Navigating this complex process – in addition to not being well educated on how claims are made – is extremely overwhelming. The short timeline may result in exonerees losing out on compensation entirely.
Rather than responding to wrongful convictions, the government should focus on preventing them in the first place. This new act doesn’t address the systemic flaws that lead to injustices, like unreliable eyewitness testimonies, inadequate defense resources, racial bias and prosecutorial misconduct. The more the government continues to ignore the root causes of the problem, the bigger it will grow.
Georgia’s Wrongful Conviction Act shows that the state is finally listening to advocates like the Georgia Innocence Project, which has long pushed for this kind of reform. Writing checks, however, is not enough to make up for the lives that were stolen. Lawmakers must find why so many are being wrongly convicted and prevent any more lives from being taken away unjustly. Until the state goes beyond compensation, addresses the root of this problem and supports exonerees, Georgia’s promise of justice for all will not be complete.
