Compensating people who are wrongfully convicted is a hard sell in some states
By CHARLOTTE KRAMON / Updated 11:05 PM GMT-5, March 14, 2025ATLANTA (AP) — Earlier this year, Michael Woolfolk attended a legislative committee in Georgia where lawmakers considered for a third year whether to compensate the 45-year-old for the 19 years he spent behind bars for a 2002 killing before charges against him were dismissed.
“We need to take care simply of people who have lost so many years of their lives and their ability to make money, have a job, have a family, create stability,” Republican Rep. Katie Dempsey, a sponsor of the Georgia bill, told The Associated Press. “Many are at the age where they would be looking at their savings, and instead, there’s none.”
Of the 1,739 people who have filed wrongful compensation claims under state laws since 1989, 1,328 received compensation, according to data from George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Gutman.
The latest version of Georgia’s proposal would require individuals to prove their innocence to an administrative law judge. They could receive $75,000 for each year of incarceration and reimbursement for other costs such as fines and fees. There would be an additional $25,000 for each year of incarceration awaiting a death sentence.
“The way that the state has treated these individuals by taking away their freedom and liberty and effectively ruining their lives, by wrongfully convicting them and then failing to expeditiously compensate them and help them get back on their feet, doesn’t sit well with me,” said Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb, a bill sponsor and former prosecutor.
Whether a person was released based on a finding they were not guilty or based on trial or law enforcement error is often a sticking point. Advocates say those wrongfully convicted deserve compensation either way because they are innocent until proven guilty, but some lawmakers are hesitant to pay them.
$Money is a poor substitute for exercising a responsible "creator endowed" life.
If you at age 18 were offered an opportunity to spend the next quarter century incarcerated, after which you might receive $1.8 $million, would you?
How can we compensate them for the decades behind bars that robbed them of their lives? A family-sized bottle of vitamins?
Money may be fungible. Time on this scale is not. Life is not.
= = =
The right thing to do?
Don't wrongly convict them in the first place.
Can't unring the bell.
What are we obliged to do to make these victims of our system whole?
