Junk Forensic Science and Wrongful Convictions: A National Survey Anchored by the Maria Montalvo Case

Georgia's post-conviction system is the central obstacle to innocence claims in the state, not a neutral filter on them. Forty-two of the 60 people the National Registry of Exonerations records as exonerated in Georgia since 1989 — 70 percent — spent more than four years between conviction and exoneration, and the four-year habeas deadline in O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c) would have barred a habeas petition in every one of those cases. Only 3 of 159 counties have any mechanism to review a potentially wrongful conviction, Georgia provides no right to counsel in habeas proceedings, and the state's 2025 compensation statute pays only after innocence has been proven through a system built to make that proof nearly impossible.