ATLANTA — When Kerry Robinson was wrongly convicted for a 1993 rape, nearly 20 years of his young adult life was taken from him.

Robinson was exonerated in 2020 of the crime after DNA analysis proved him innocent in a case where three men broke into a home in Moultrie, Georgia and raped a woman.

Now Robinson, 46, is seeking wrongful conviction compensation from Georgia. 

“Those were probably his most productive working years that he was denied,” said Atlanta Democrat Rep. Scott Holcomb, sponsor of a bill to have Robinson compensated. “He wasn't able to contribute to social security. He wasn't able to save money for when he retires. He wasn't able to build his skills so that way he could have greater opportunities in terms of advancement and promotions and things like that, which ordinarily probably would have happened for him at this stage of his career. But instead, he didn't get that. So for many reasons, compensating wrongly convicted persons is absolutely the right thing to.” 

Georgia is one of a dozen states that does not have a set standard for providing compensation to exonerees after a wrongful arrest or conviction. Currently, the exonerated can petition a state legislator to sponsor a compensation bill that would have to garner majority approval in the state legislature.  

Only a handful of Georgia exonerees have received compensation though the legislative process. A proposal is underway in Georgia to establish a standard statutory wrongful conviction bill that would allow them to avoid going through lawmakers for reparations.    

“There's always a concern that once you've been through the system, that it changes you for the worst whether or not you did anything to put yourself there,”  said Robinson's attorney, Molly Parmer, about past statutory proposals. “And the final potential proposed bill is something that has a lot of egregious requirements for the exonerated. It says things like, well, they can't commit any crimes and they have to do this or that...Sometimes as these bills go through the system, they change in a way that disadvantages our clients or doesn’t provide the relief that we think they’re entitled to."

Parmer is also a board member for the Georgia Innocence Project— a nonprofit dedicated to helping individuals who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit, with emphasis on DNA evidence cases. GIP estimates about 2,100 people are in Georgia jails or prisons for crimes they didn't commit.  

In Robinson's case, a GBI analyst's inaccurate DNA testimony and the main suspect, Tyrone White's, implication of Robinson led to Robinson's conviction in 2002 after a delayed trial.

“We see this all the time with wrongful convictions where an incentivized informant feels motivated to just point to anybody because it deflects the attention from themselves and in a small town, if the allegations are that there are three teenage boys, I think you just choose another teenage boy and hope that it puts you in a better position," Parmer said.  

New DNA evidence helped GIP in the case of Devonia Inman, who was released from Augusta State Medical Prison Dec. 20 after spending two decades behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit.

The proposal to compensate Robinson, HR 626, requests that Robinson be compensated a lump sum of $551,000, stating that he has "suffered loss of liberty, personal injury, lost wages, injury to reputation, emotional distress and other damages" as a result of his more than 17 years of incarceration for a rape he did not commit.

“He does not hold any anger or bitterness in his heart, despite what happened to him is extremely grateful to be free," Holcomb said of Robinson. "He really has, I think, an incredible outlook on life. I really am honored to help him with this, and I think that he deserves it. And it's something that is very, very meaningful...to something to help make his life a little bit better." 

Robinson is currently living with his sister in Moultrie, and has worked in numerous positions until now finding a job he loves as a forklift driver, according to Parmer. 

Lawmaker prompted to set wrongful convicted compensation standard in Georgia

Holcomb is also hoping colleagues will sign on to his proposed “Wrongful Conviction Compensation Act” that would finally set a standard for compensating those who have been wrongfully incarcerated and convicted in the state.  

"There are instances of course where the system is wrong and I don't know of any organization or system that’s human-based—which our justice system is—that doesn't have mistakes and errors,”  said Holcomb, an attorney who has sponsored several sexual assault related bills during his 10-year tenure. "Just to recognize that when mistakes happen, we really have to do something to compensate for it.” 

The proposal, HB 1354, also has Republican co-sponsors, and would create a five-person review panel consisting of attorneys and a judge, which would review the claimants case. The claim must be filed within three years and the person filing the claim can request a hearing.   

The board would be able to recommended $100,000 but no less than $50,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration, encouraging the board to strive for consistency among claims.

Within six months, or within a year if a hearing was held, of receiving the claim, the panel would prepare a written recommendation to the state claims board, which must then adopt the panel’s recommendation to submit to the Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice. The Chief Justice would then include the recommendation in the upcoming judiciary budget year, if received before Sept. 1. The compensation would come out of the following year's budget if received after Sept. 1.    

“Our hope is that this legislative session that in addition to Kerry’s private bill, we can get a statutory compensation bill passed as well and change the landscape in Georgia whereby many of our exonerees received nothing,” Parmer said. 

Compensation laws in other states 

Alabama: A minimum of $50,000 for each year of incarceration is offered to those wrongly convicted or who have been incarcerated pretrial on a state felony charge. The state's  Committee on Compensation for Wrongful Incarceration can recommend additional amounts that must be approved through the legislature. Alabama has had at least 34 exonerations since 1989, according to NRE data.  

Mississippi: A person who is wrongfully convicted and imprisoned can receive $50,000 per year of incarceration, if they can prove again to the state that they did not commit the offense, and if they can show that they did not fabricate evidence to bring about their original conviction through false confessions. Twenty-seven exonerations were reported in the state since 1989.  

Tennessee: Any exonerated or pardoned person is entitled to a total of $1 million for the entirety of a wrongful incarceration, according to Innocence Project. In determining the amount of compensation, the state's board of claims can consider the person's physical and mental suffering and loss of earnings. The claim must be filed within one year of exoneration. NRE reported an estimated 25 exonerations since 1989.  

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