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.
