TL;DR
Georgia has 159 counties. Only 3 of them have a team that checks if someone was wrongly convicted. These teams are called Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs). They work inside the prosecutor’s office. Across the U.S., CIUs freed 62 wrongly convicted people in 2024 alone. But most of Georgia has no such team. And Georgia’s own laws make it very hard for people in prison to prove they are innocent.
Why This Matters
If your loved one was wrongly convicted in most Georgia counties, there is no team to review their case. No office will look at new evidence. No one will check if the system got it wrong.
Georgia also makes it almost impossible to fight a conviction on your own. There is no right to a lawyer after your appeal is done. And there is a four-year deadline to challenge your conviction. But most people who are freed by DNA evidence served 14 years before they got out. That means the deadline runs out long before most people can prove they are innocent.
This isn’t just unfair to the person in prison. When an innocent person is locked up, the real criminal is still free. As one CIU leader in Georgia said: “You have an illusion of safety, but you’re not safe.”
Key Takeaway: 156 of Georgia’s 159 counties have no team to check for wrongful convictions, and the state’s own laws block most people from proving they are innocent.
What Is a Conviction Integrity Unit?
A Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) is a team inside a prosecutor’s office. Its job is to look back at old cases. It checks whether the right person was convicted.
CIUs look at cases where:
– New evidence has come to light
– A witness may have been wrong
– Police or prosecutors may have done something wrong
– The science used at trial has since been proven wrong
Think of it this way. The same office that put someone in prison takes a second look. They ask: did we get this right?
Key Takeaway: A CIU is a team of prosecutors who review old cases to make sure the right person was convicted.
CIUs Are Freeing Innocent People Across the Country
In 2024, there were 147 total exonerations (cases where people were cleared) in the U.S. CIUs helped free 62 of those people. Innocence groups helped free 53. They worked together on 22 of those cases.
In total, 93 out of 147 people freed — that’s 63% — had help from a CIU or innocence group.
But CIUs are still rare. Only about 122 exist across the whole country. There are about 2,300 prosecutor offices in the U.S. That means only about 5% have a CIU.
Some CIUs have done huge work:
– Harris County, Texas: 132 people freed since 2014
– Cook County, Illinois: 33 people freed since 2012
– Brooklyn, New York: 24 people freed — 22 of them were Black
In Harris County, the CIU found that many people pled guilty to drug charges. But lab results later showed the items were not drugs at all. These people never should have been convicted.
Key Takeaway: CIUs helped free 62 wrongly convicted people in 2024 — more than any other type of group.
Georgia’s Three CIUs — and the 156 Counties Without One
Georgia has only 3 CIUs. They are in:
– Fulton County (Atlanta area) — started in 2019
– Gwinnett County — started in 2021
– Chatham County (Savannah) — started in 2022
Georgia has 159 counties and 49 court circuits. That means 156 counties have no CIU at all.
If you were wrongly convicted in south Georgia or rural Georgia, there is no team to review your case. There is no office to call. You are on your own.
Key Takeaway: Only 3 of Georgia’s 159 counties have a CIU — the other 156 have no way to review wrongful convictions.
Chatham County Shows What CIUs Can Find
Chatham County is only the fifth largest county in Georgia. But it accounts for 20% of the state’s known cases where wrongly convicted people were cleared. Nine people have been freed there.
That raises a big question. If one county has that many wrongful convictions, how many are hiding in the 156 counties with no CIU?
As of May 2024, the Chatham County CIU had received 30 requests for review. A little more than half were screened out. They did not meet the basic rules to qualify.
Key Takeaway: One county makes up 20% of Georgia’s cleared cases — imagine what other counties would find if they had CIUs.
Georgia’s Laws Make It Almost Impossible to Prove Innocence
Even without a CIU, you might think people could go to court on their own. But Georgia has some of the toughest barriers in the country:
No right to a lawyer — Georgia does not give you a lawyer for habeas (HAY-bee-us) cases. That’s the legal process to challenge your conviction. Most people in prison have to do this alone.
A four-year deadline — Georgia law says you have only four years to file a habeas case after your appeal ends. But the average person freed by DNA evidence served 14 years. The deadline runs out 10 years too early for most people.
You can’t raise new issues — If your lawyer didn’t bring up a problem during your first appeal, you usually can’t raise it later. Even if you had a bad lawyer. Even if you didn’t know the problem existed.
You can’t try again — Filing a second habeas case is almost impossible. Even if you find new evidence.
These rules, taken together, slam the courthouse door shut. That is why CIUs matter so much in Georgia. They may be the only way for an innocent person to get their case reviewed.
Key Takeaway: Georgia gives no lawyer, sets a four-year deadline, and blocks second tries — making CIUs the only real hope for many wrongly convicted people.
What Good CIUs Look Like
The best CIUs share some key traits:
– They work apart from the lawyers who handled the original case
– They work with defense lawyers and innocence groups
– They have clear, public rules about which cases they review
– They have enough staff and money to do the job
– They can act on what they find — like dropping charges or asking for a new trial
Aimee Maxwell leads the Fulton County CIU. She has nearly 40 years of criminal law experience. She also started the Georgia Innocence Project.
Maxwell says people in every county should push for a CIU. She said: “If you get it wrong, there’s an innocent person in prison, but also the guilty person is still out there. So you’re not safe. You have an illusion of safety, but you’re not safe.”
Key Takeaway: Good CIUs are independent, well-staffed, and have the power to act when they find a wrongful conviction.
Why Georgia Should Act Now
There are strong reasons to expand CIUs across Georgia right now:
- Public safety: When an innocent person is in prison, the real criminal is still free.
- Cost: Keeping a wrongly convicted person locked up is expensive. Under Georgia’s new law, the state must pay $75,000 per year to people wrongly imprisoned.
- Trust: CIUs help the public trust the justice system.
- This can be bipartisan: Georgia’s wrongful conviction pay law passed with support from both parties. Governor Kemp, a Republican, signed it.
- Federal pressure: In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice found that Georgia prison conditions break the law. Every person wrongly held in those prisons is exposed to those conditions.
Other states show what is possible. Texas — a conservative state — is a national leader. North Carolina has a state-level group that reviews innocence claims across the whole state.
Georgia can do this too.
Key Takeaway: Expanding CIUs is a public safety issue, a cost issue, and a justice issue — and Georgia has bipartisan support to act.
Glossary
Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU): A team inside a prosecutor’s office that reviews old cases to check for wrongful convictions.
Exoneration (ex-on-er-AY-shun): When the legal system admits someone was wrongly convicted. Their conviction is thrown out.
Habeas corpus (HAY-bee-us COR-pus): A legal process where a person in prison can challenge their conviction. In Georgia, this is the main way to fight a wrongful conviction after your appeal.
Pro se (pro SAY): When someone goes to court without a lawyer and speaks for themselves.
Innocence Organization: A nonprofit group that works to free wrongly convicted people. The Georgia Innocence Project is one example.
Brady violation: When prosecutors hide evidence that could help the defendant. This is against the law.
Procedural default: A rule that blocks legal claims if they were not raised during the first appeal — even if the person had no lawyer.
Successive petition bar: A rule that makes it nearly impossible to file a second habeas case, even with new evidence.
O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42: The Georgia law that sets a four-year deadline on habeas cases.
Actual innocence: Proof that the convicted person truly did not commit the crime.
Read the Source Document
Read the full GPS analysis: “Conviction Integrity Units: A Pathway to Justice in Georgia” (PDF)
Other Versions
- Legislator Version — A version written for lawmakers with policy details and recommendations.
- Media Version — A version written for journalists covering Georgia’s justice system.