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.
Behind him sat Daryl Lee Clark, also 45, who spent 25 years in prison for a 1998 murder conviction that was vacated over a series of legal and police errors. It was his second attempt to obtain compensation.
Georgia is one of 11 states with no law on compensating people found to have been wrongfully convicted. Individuals seeking compensation take their cases to the legislature, where they seek a lawmaker to sponsor a resolution to pay them. Critics say it mires the process in politics.
Lawmakers have been considering legislation to move the decision to judges, but now it’s unclear if that will pass this year.
“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.”
The amount of money that’s paid out for this is pitiful in comparison to how much you’d need to actually feel compensated. It’s $50k-$100k per year of imprisonment (depending on state and length of imprisonment), so for 20 years you’re getting (in most states) $2 million or so, but then you’re charged for services rendered while you were imprisoned in most states - for example, health insurance, room and board, etc., which severely reduce that value. Even if you got the full $2 million, you’ve lost 20 years - and the career development you would have had during that time - not to mention technology has likely completely moved on from what you remember. Good luck getting anything more than a minimum wage job at that point, and $2 million is not going to last you for the rest of your life unless you were already 50 or so when you were convicted.
To be clear, I agree with you that people falsely convicted should be monetarily compensated. Just pointing out that current compensation is embarrassingly low.