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.”
Not just give money. The money is just a start. All the people involved in the case should also be investigated to see who knew they might be innocent, and then those people should be criminally charged. Putting an innocent person in jail should have personal criminal liability attached.
And everyone who completes their sentence should be given enough money to restart their life along with social support to make it happen.
Knowingly putting someone in jail who is innocent should carry severe punishments. I think twice the time the innocent persons sentence is about right.