ATLANTA — In February 2021, Terry Talley walked out of Dooly State Prison after a judge overturned four convictions that sent him there 40 years earlier.
He was 23 in 1981 when he was convicted of a series of LaGrange sexual assaults that he insists he didn’t commit and resulted in four life sentences. A DNA test in 2009 proved he didn’t commit one of the crimes, but he still had three life sentences from the other assaults that didn’t have DNA evidence.
It took 12 more years before the local law enforcement agency that initially arrested Talley worked with defense attorneys to persuade a judge to agree to exonerate him in three related cases. The district attorney didn’t challenge the release but said the decision should not be considered an endorsement of Talley’s innocence in the whole case.
Now, Talley, 65, lives with his mother and works for the LaGrange Police Department’s animal control office making $391 a week.
Talley had hoped the Georgia General Assembly would grant him the $1.8 million that lawmakers determined he was owed after serving 25 years and eight months for the four wrongful convictions.
Instead, he was one of four men who served decades in prison for convictions that have been overturned but received nothing from lawmakers.
The process to repay Georgians released from prison after being wrongfully convicted broke down this year, with legislators failing to approve resolutions to pay them for the time, livelihood and freedom that was taken from them.
“I did no wrong,” Talley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from his home in LaGrange. “They took my life. As far as building a family, all my friends passed away, (then) coming home and not knowing anybody but your family. I had hoped I would have gotten some money so I can start my life over.”
But state Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, a Cataula Republican and former sheriff’s deputy, asked a Senate subcommittee to delay the resolutions that would have paid the men a total of nearly $4.5 million for errors by the police and courts. Senators also stalled a bill to set up what supporters call a more rigorous and objective compensation system. All of them can be considered again when lawmakers return to the Capitol next year.
Talley and the others may have been released from prison after prosecutors opted not to retry their cases, Robertson said, but that doesn’t mean they’re innocent and deserve to be compensated by the state.
“These four cases that were brought this year, I think — no, I know, by reading all of the materials (associated with the cases) — I know that these individuals are not exonerated,” Robertson said.
Now, the men will have to wait until next year to learn whether the state will compensate them for the time they lost, despite prosecutors and judges throwing out the cases against them based on new evidence or lack of evidence for decades-old charges.
“It’s another year these men are going to have to try to survive without any additional help,” said Blis Savidge of the Georgia Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA evidence and research to clear people’s names. “Many people think that this nightmare of wrongful conviction ends when people walk out of prison. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. They often come out without any money, transportation or health care.”
Money doesn’t always go far
Georgia is one of 12 states without a law to compensate people who were wrongly convicted.
Instead, each case requires a resolution introduced in the General Assembly, and then legislators decide whether to pass it. This year, nothing passed.
One of the men who sought recompense this year was Devonia Inman, who served 23 years of a life sentence without parole before he was freed in December 2021.
Inman had been convicted of a murder in a killing at a Taco Bell in South Georgia after a judge said prosecutors withheld DNA evidence that pointed to a different suspect and dismissed Inman’s conviction. Inman’s case was the subject of the fourth season of the AJC’s “Breakdown” podcast in 2017.
Another case involved two Atlanta men imprisoned since 2002 in the shooting death of a woman that they said was in self-defense. Years later, a potential witness who had disappeared was found, and he corroborated their story. Mario Stinchcomb and Michael Woolfolk were eventually released when a Fulton County Superior Court judge said they acted in self-defense and charges against them were dropped.
Each of the men was set to receive between $910,000 and $1.8 million — between $55,555 and $70,000 per year of their wrongful imprisonment.
Over the years, state legislators have made payouts on a piecemeal basis.
In a previous case, the state set aside $1 million for Clarence Harrison, who was imprisoned for 17 years based in part on flawed expert testimony about DNA evidence from a rape. Further DNA testing from a rape kit showed that Harrison couldn’t have been the perpetrator, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
Harrison said almost all the money went toward hospital bills and taxes, and he’s now disabled and depending on his wife’s income.
“I came out of prison wanting to be my own man who could lean on himself,” Harrison said. “Without getting compensation, we don’t have our liberty. We’re still incarcerated financially and mentally. We’re stuck in our house because we can’t go anywhere and we can’t do anything because we don’t have any funds. Without funds you don’t have freedom.”
Fixing the system
State Rep. Debbie Buckner, a Junction City Democrat who sponsored the resolution seeking compensation for Talley, said she was disappointed the current payment system stopped him from receiving any money this year.
“They’ve been wronged by the system,” Buckner said. “They can’t make up the 20, 30, 40 years of their lives when they couldn’t pay into Social Security or Medicare or a 401(k) — they don’t have retirement. You just don’t want to let somebody down that’s already been let down so many times.”
State Rep. Scott Holcomb, an Atlanta Democrat, sponsored the bill that got held up in a Senate committee that aimed to standardize the way those who’ve been wrongfully convicted are compensated.
Holcomb said House Bill 364 would fix what he calls a “very laborious process” that lawmakers are often hesitant to get involved with.
Under Georgia’s current process, once a judge or prosecutor has thrown out the charges against someone who had been convicted, they must find a legislator who is willing to sponsor a resolution that would compensate them, a process that often gets bogged down by politics.
They must also present their case to an advisory board under the secretary of state’s office that’s designed to process smaller claims from people harmed by state agencies before it comes before the Legislature. The board does not have guidelines for wrongful conviction compensation.
“We’re trying to give real expertise in terms of making the evaluation on innocence,” Holcomb said. “The pool of people we’re working with are the truly innocent that should never have been taken away from their families.”
State Rep. Carolyn Hugley, a Columbus Democrat, was part of a panel of lawmakers who studied the way compensation is granted to those who’ve been wrongfully convicted. She said they learned it was important to have a standardized way of determining who should be awarded money and how much.
“The process that we currently have is based on personality and who happens to be in the Legislature at the time,“ she said. “There are some members who don’t believe anyone should be compensated and others who say, ‘Well, it’s not the state’s fault.’ ”
Hugley, who is a co-signer on the resolution on behalf of Talley, said she was frustrated that the four compensation resolutions were held up.
“It simply makes no sense,” she said. “It’s a very sad situation. And in many cases these people have been taken away from their families for 20 years or more, and we act as if that is trivial.”
HB 364 would create a panel of appointees, all subject matter experts in wrongful convictions or criminal justice, to vet compensation claims while laying out clear guidelines for who does and does not qualify. It was amended in a Senate panel to also require that those who have been exonerated are compensated at a figure between $60,000 and $120,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment.
The recommendation would then go to the state’s Supreme Court chief justice for approval and be funded through the judicial budget.
The Senate Appropriations Committee ran out of time to advance HB 364 before the end of the session, committee Chairman Blake Tillery said.
Robertson said he is working with legislative counsel to propose his own suggested changes to the compensation process.
“The bottom line is I understand the criminal justice system from A to Z,” he said. “I’m the expert when it comes to this stuff, (and) we have one real good chance to get it right. ...While I respect the author (Holcomb), I don’t think it was all the way there.”
The future
Both Holcomb and Robertson said they plan to push next year for changes to be made to the compensation process. Robertson said the “disjointed” process asks lawmakers to “rubber stamp” the compensation resolutions.
“If we’re going to develop a policy on how this is done, we have to do it involving experts in the area,” Robertson said. “The way we’re doing it right now is very elementary. I don’t think it serves those who are on trial, and I don’t think it serves those who are victims of crimes.”
If the Legislature approves the resolution next year, Talley would receive a lump sum of cash and then monthly payments for the following 10 years. What does he plan to do with the money if he gets it?
“I want to buy some land out in the country,” he said. “I’ll build a house and get some dogs and some horses. And try to live a normal life.”
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EXONERATED BUT UNCOMPENSATED
The Georgia General Assembly failed to pass resolutions this year that would have compensated four men for the decades they spent in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
TERRY TALLEY
Time served: 40 years, nearly 26 of which involved sexual assault cases in which he was exonerated in 2021.
Compensation requested: $1.8 million, or $70,000 per year of his wrongful imprisonment.
DEVONIA INMAN
Time served: 23 years before he was cleared in 2021 of a killing at a South Georgia Taco Bell.
Compensation requested: $1.6 million, or $70,000 per year he was incarcerated.
MICHAEL WOOLFOLK
Time served: Over 18 years before a murder charge was dismissed in 2021 in a shooting death that was later found to be in self-defense.
Compensation requested: $1.26 million, or $70,000 per year he was incarcerated.
MARIO STINCHCOMB
Time served: Over 18 years in connection with the same self-defense shooting that involved Woolfolk until he was cleared in 2021.
Compensation requested: $910,000, or about $50,555 per year he was incarcerated. Stinchcomb asked for less money than Woolfolk because he pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
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