Senator Kenya Wicks

Get Outlook for iOS ________________________________ From: Tabatha Westmoreland Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2026 5:39:02 PM To: Wicks, Kenya Subject: Repeal O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c) — Restore the Writ of Habeas Corpus in Georgia [*** External Email ***]EXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.Dear Honorable Kenya Wicks,This is not an abstract policy debate for our community — this is our husbands, our brothers, our neighbors, and we see the damage every single day. I am writing as a constituent from Riverdale in House District 77 and Senate District 34, and as the wife of a man serving a life sentence after being railroaded in Cobb County in 2007. He has spent the years since transforming his life, but Georgia law has made it nearly impossible for him — or anyone like him — to have a court take a serious look at what happened in that courtroom. I am asking you to introduce or co-sponsor legislation in the 2026 session to repeal or reform Georgia's habeas corpus filing deadline under O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c).Here is the plain truth that most Georgians do not know: our state is an outlier. Texas, California, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, and Vermont have no statutory deadline for filing a habeas petition. Maryland allows ten years. New Jersey allows five, with explicit exceptions for constitutional claims and actual innocence. Even the federal AEDPA's one-year deadline carries the actual-innocence safety valve the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in McQuiggin v. Perkins (2013). Georgia, by contrast, slams the courthouse door at four years for felonies and one year for misdemeanors, and our Supreme Court has refused to recognize equitable tolling. There is no actual-innocence exception. None. A Georgian with DNA evidence, a recanted confession, or proof of prosecutorial misconduct discovered in year five has no remedy in our state courts. That is not procedural housekeeping — that is foreclosing the very writ the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution were written to protect.Our community feels the consequences of this every day. Families pool money for lawyers who have to deliver the same gut-punch news: the clock ran out. Children grow up visiting fathers and mothers whose convictions were never meaningfully tested on the merits. Neighborhoods absorb the economic and emotional damage of a system that warehouses people — Georgia holds 52,810 people in GDC custody at 104.9% of operational capacity, and at the 24 facilities with original design data, we are at 181% of design capacity. The 2024 Department of Justice findings described "unconscionable and unacceptable" conditions, with deliberate indifference to violence, gang control, and contraband. GPS has tracked 1,795 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, including 333 in 2024 and 301 in 2025. A system this broken cannot also be the system that gets the final, unreviewable word on guilt and innocence.GPS's own reporting has documented how Georgia courts have eroded post-conviction relief — including how a single judicial retirement in 2009 allowed the Georgia Supreme Court in Harper v. State to overturn a 146-year-old precedent under § 17-9-4 that had let people challenge void convictions. Combine that with the § 9-14-42(c) time bar, and the avenues for an innocent person to be heard in Georgia have shrunk to almost nothing. Meanwhile, junk forensic science cases — discredited arson methodology, unvalidated pattern analysis — continue to hold people in our prisons with no mechanism to reopen the record. This is not a hypothetical. These are our neighbors.I am respectfully asking you to take the following actions in the 2026 session:1. Introduce or co-sponsor legislation to repeal O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c) outright, bringing Georgia in line with Texas, California, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, and Vermont.2. At a minimum, amend § 9-14-42 to add an actual-innocence exception consistent with McQuiggin v. Perkins and the federal AEDPA framework, and to codify equitable tolling for state-created impediments, newly discovered evidence, and ineffective assistance during the limitations period.3. Hold a hearing in the Judiciary Committee that centers directly impacted families and community advocates — not just prosecutors and agency officials — so that legislators hear from the Georgians who actually navigate this statute.4. Publicly state your position on whether Georgia should be the only state in the nation that bars an innocent person from filing a habeas petition because too much time has passed.The writ of habeas corpus predates the United States. It is enshrined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution and in the Georgia Constitution. A time bar with no innocence exception is not reform — it is the quiet repeal of a centuries-old right, and it is happening in our state with almost no public debate. Communities like mine in Riverdale and across House District 77 and Senate District 34 are asking you to fix it. We have the lived expertise, we have the solutions, and we are organizing. We need legislators willing to carry this bill.I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you or your staff and to connect you with other constituents and advocates ready to support this reform. Please let me know where you stand.Sincerely,Tabatha Westmoreland Riverdale, GA House District 77, Senate District 34 chancematters1023@gmail.com

Good Evening,I would love to set up a meeting with you and discuss the way ahead.Senator Wicks.

Good Evening Mrs. Westmoreland,I hope this email finds you well.I hear you and your concerns. I want to champion the reintegration program? I'm in the process of looking how I can work with the community to change the narrative. I would love to hear your concerns and find a solution.Senator Wicks