ATLANTA — Four men recently exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit will have to extend their hope for pay from the state until next year.

While four resolutions to compensate the men passed with majority support in the House of Representatives in early March, a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Compensation voted last week to table the measures until next year to gain more clarity on each case.

Currently, an exoneree in Georgia must lobby a state legislator to sponsor a private resolution to enter the path toward compensation from the state.

Advocates for wrongful conviction compensation say it’s a necessary form of eradicating the injustice and helps provide exonerees with financial support for basic necessities like food, transportation, housing, medical care, education, workforce assistance and mental health services.

Committee member Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Catuala, made the motion March 22 to table the resolutions before they could be heard by the Committee. He said they needed more time to read through evidence and statements.

“As we mentioned last committee meeting, there is a discrepancy on what the definition of exoneration is, and so I think for us to make an educated decision on these resolutions, we must be educated on these (four) cases,” Robertson said.

Among the resolutions in question are those for Mario Stinchcomb and Michael Woolfolk, exonerated in 2021 after spending 18 years as co-defendants in an Atlanta murder case that was recently found to be self-defense. They were accused of shooting and killing a woman after an argument.

Terry Talley, wrongly convicted of sexual assault in a case in LaGrange, was exonerated in 2021. He spent nearly 26 years in prison, and while in custody, a reinvestigation and DNA evidence cleared Talley of the crime.

The fourth resolution was for compensation for Devonia Inman, wrongly convicted of murdering a Taco Bell manager in Adel. He spent approximately 23 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared his name in 2021.

Robertson seemed to have the most skepticism of exoneration in Stinchcomb and Woolfolk’s case.

But Democrat Rep. Becky Evans, who sponsored the two men’s resolutions, ensured Robertson and committee members that their exonerations have already been throughly vetted before the state Compensation Advisory Committee.

“There was an eyewitness that changed their testimony multiple times. That seemed to be the basis of the prosecutor moving forward the first time,” Evans explained. “There was a witness found, who was thought to be dead, who corroborated the self-defense theory. The prosecutor would not have that witness heard at trial.”

Evans said the Georgia Supreme Court ordered that the new witness be heard. However, when it came time for a new trial, the prosecutor in Fulton County dismissed the case, Evans said.

“In the example of my resolution individuals, the prosecutor did not move forward and did a nolle pros, meaning there was no case,” Evans said.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit also subsequently exonerated the two men.

Robertson, a former law enforcement officer, however, seemed to disagree with the men’s self-defense claim based off of his review of some of the case files.

“They had the evidence that the bullet holes in the roof of the car, and the victim, a female sex worker, was shot in the head through the roof of the car,” Robertson said. “Ballistics showed that. I think if you look at self-defense, when the individual disengages from the scene, then the argument of self-defense stops.”

He also referenced conflicting statements by two men in court documents, and suggested that the since the incident happened years before a new trial was granted, the newer Fulton County prosecutor was likely inclined to not hear the case.

“Age does change the judicial process because evidence fades, witnesses, memories fade,” Robertson said. “And sometimes prosecutors are placed in precarious situations that when they look at the date of a case and realize the overall overwhelming responsibility of going and finding all the witnesses and doing all this… and when they know the individual has been incarcerated for 10, 15, 20 years, that has an impact on their ability to prosecute the case.”

Robertson took issue with the word exoneration in granting pay to those wrongly convicted though he voted in favor House Bill 364 just before his motion to table the four compensation resolutions.

HB 364 passed in the House and in the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Compensation, establishing a uniformed process for paying exonerees without going through legislators.

In the bill, “exonerated” is defined as someone who: had his or her judgment of conviction reversed or vacated, or was granted a new trial, and had the indictment or accusation dismissed or nolle prossed; had his or her judgment of conviction reversed or vacated, or was granted a new trial and, upon retrial, acquitted; or received a pardon based on innocence.

The bill would also establish a panel made up of attorneys and forensic experts that could recommend compensation for someone who has been exonerated of a crime after receiving the exoneree’s claim. The panel would be able to recommend a payment of $60,000 to $120,000 for each year the wrongfully convicted applicant was incarcerated, according to the proposal, a part of a March 22 amendment by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Compensation.

The bill, however, did not make it out of the Senate Rules Committee for a vote on the Senate floor.

Subsequently, late in the evening on Day 38 of 40 of the legislative session, Democrat Rep. Scott Holcomb, sponsor of the bill, re-presented the proposal on the House floor March 24 under a different bill that had passed out of the Senate.

SB 35 was originally a bill to establish a specialty license plate honoring Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. However, the House approved a substitute to SB 35 that includes the language from the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Compensation’s substitute to HB 364.

The substitute to SB 35 now heads back to the Senate.

”I’m hopeful it will move,” Holcomb said. “The votes are there to pass if called.

Georgia is one of nearly a dozen states that does not have a defined, uniformed process for deciding pay for those wrongly convicted. Close to 50 people have been exonerated since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations data.

Here is a look at some states that do have defined wrongful conviction compensation laws:

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 30 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-six 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 reports an estimated 38 exonerations in Tennessee since 1989.