GPS Policy Brief
Vision 2027 › Bill 5: Conviction Integrity
The Conviction Integrity Gap
156 of 159 Georgia Counties Have No Way to Catch a Wrongful Conviction
The Core Problem
Georgia has no statewide mechanism to identify or remedy wrongful convictions. No state body with subpoena power. No authority to order DNA testing. No staff dedicated to investigating claims of innocence. Only 3 of 159 counties have any formal conviction review capacity — Fulton, DeKalb, and Chatham. The remaining 156 counties have nothing. Meanwhile, an estimated 1,880 to 5,450 innocent people sit in Georgia’s prisons, costing taxpayers $59 to $172 million per year. In 2025, Georgia created a compensation system for the wrongfully convicted. Now it needs a system to find them.
The Scale of the Problem
51 Georgians have been exonerated since 1989. They collectively lost 610 years to wrongful imprisonment. The Georgia Innocence Project alone has freed 16 people who lost a combined 372 years — an average of 23 years per person.
But 51 is a dramatic undercount. A landmark study by the Urban Institute, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, tested preserved DNA evidence in 634 pre-DNA-era sexual assault cases across 56 Virginia courts and found that 11.6% of convictions were wrongful. Applied to Georgia’s approximately 47,000 inmates, that suggests as many as 5,450 innocent people behind bars right now.
Even at a conservative 4% rate, that is 1,880 people — costing Georgia taxpayers $59.4 million per year in incarceration alone. Add the $75,000 per year in statutory compensation under SB 244, and the total liability rises to over $200 million annually.
The trend is accelerating. Nine of the Georgia Innocence Project’s 16 exonerations have occurred since 2020. The wrongful convictions were always there — the capacity to uncover them is finally growing. But it is still nowhere near sufficient.
What Causes Wrongful Convictions?
National data from the National Registry of Exonerations reveals a consistent pattern of systemic failure, not isolated error:
| Contributing Factor | % of Exonerations |
|---|---|
| Official Misconduct | 54–71% |
| Perjury / False Accusation | 51–61% |
| Mistaken Eyewitness ID | 43–56% |
| False / Misleading Forensic Evidence | 24% |
| False Confession | 16% |
Percentages exceed 100% because multiple factors contribute to most wrongful convictions.
In Georgia specifically, mistaken witness identification contributed to 67% of adult sexual assault wrongful convictions, with cross-racial misidentification — Black men identified by white victims — accounting for half of those cases. Georgia’s exonerees are 50% Black in a state that is 32% Black.
The National Models
North Carolina: The Independent Commission
North Carolina’s Innocence Inquiry Commission, established in 2006, is the only independent state-level innocence commission in the country. Its structure is purpose-built for credibility: an 8-member bipartisan body including a judge (who chairs), a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a victim advocate, a sheriff, and public members — appointed by the Chief Justice and the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals.
The commission has subpoena power, can compel testimony and grant immunity, can order DNA testing with CODIS access, and refers cases to a three-judge panel for final determination. On a budget of approximately $1.6 million per year with 13 staff, it has reviewed over 3,500 claims and freed 16 innocent people.
Its independence matters. Unlike prosecutor-run conviction integrity units, the commission has no institutional stake in defending prior convictions.
Texas: The CIU Leader
Texas pioneered the district attorney-based Conviction Integrity Unit model when Dallas County established the nation’s first CIU in 2007. Six Texas counties now have active CIUs, and Dallas County has produced more exonerations than any CIU in the country.
But here is the critical lesson: even in the most CIU-active state in America, only 6 of 254 counties (2.4%) have CIUs. Texas has no state mandate. Creation is voluntary, left to individual elected DAs. The vast majority of Texans live in counties with no formal conviction review mechanism.
Georgia’s coverage — 3 of 159 counties, or 1.9% — is even worse.
The Fiscal Case
A Georgia conviction integrity commission modeled on North Carolina’s — scaled up for Georgia’s larger prison population — would cost approximately $2.0 to $2.5 million per year. That is 0.14% of GDC’s $1.779 billion budget. Less than the cost of incarcerating 80 inmates.
The break-even math is straightforward:
| Measure | To Break Even |
|---|---|
| Incarceration costs only ($31,613/yr) | 79 wrongful convictions identified |
| Including SB 244 compensation ($106,613/yr) | 24 wrongful convictions identified |
If the commission identifies just 24 wrongful convictions per year, it pays for itself entirely. Given that conservative estimates put the wrongfully convicted population at 1,880+, that threshold is modest.
Texas has already learned this lesson the hard way: since 2009, the state has paid $156.7 million in compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Prevention through systematic review is orders of magnitude cheaper than compensation after decades of wrongful imprisonment.
The Reform
Bill 5 of the Georgia Post-Conviction Justice Act proposes a hybrid model that would make Georgia a national leader in conviction integrity — combining the best features of the North Carolina and Texas approaches:
1. An Independent Statewide Commission
Modeled on North Carolina. An 8-member bipartisan body with full subpoena power, DNA testing authority, CODIS access, and a three-judge panel for final determinations. Independent budget line protected from executive reduction. Estimated annual cost: $2.0–$2.5 million.
2. A Local CIU Mandate — First in the Nation
Require district attorney offices in judicial circuits above a population threshold to establish Conviction Integrity Units within two years, with state funding assistance for smaller circuits and mandatory annual reporting. No state has ever mandated CIUs. Georgia would be the first — surpassing even Texas’s voluntary model.
3. An Exoneration Review Function
Modeled on the Texas Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission. The commission would study patterns in Georgia’s wrongful convictions, issue annual reports with systemic reform recommendations, and collect data on contributing factors, racial disparities, and geographic variation across Georgia’s 49 judicial circuits.
Why Now
SB 244 created the aftermath infrastructure. Georgia’s Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Act, signed in May 2025, established a system to compensate the wrongfully convicted after they are found. A conviction integrity commission creates the discovery infrastructure — the system to find them in the first place. Together, they form a complete framework.
The Georgia Innocence Project cannot do this alone. GIP has received over 7,000 requests for assistance but can only represent dozens of active cases at a time. A state-funded commission with subpoena power and dedicated staff would multiply the capacity for conviction review exponentially.
North Carolina’s 2025 budget crisis is a cautionary tale. Even after 19 years of operation, the NC Senate tried to eliminate the commission’s funding entirely. Any Georgia legislation must include statutory funding protections — a dedicated funding mechanism, minimum staffing requirements, multi-year authorization, and a prohibition on executive branch budget reduction without commission approval.
“Georgia created a law to compensate the innocent after they are found. Now it needs a system to find them. For $2.5 million a year — one-seventh of one percent of the corrections budget — it can have one.”
Sources
North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission — Official Site
N.C.G.S. 15A-1460 et seq. — NC General Assembly
Roman et al., “Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction” (Urban Institute, 2012) — Urban Institute
National Registry of Exonerations — exonerationregistry.org
NRE 2024 Annual Report — PDF
Georgia Innocence Project — georgiainnocenceproject.org
Georgia Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Act (SB 244) — O.C.G.A. 17-22-1
Tim Cole Act — Texas Courts
Dallas County CIU — Dallas County
GPS Research Collection #74: Conviction Integrity in Georgia
Related Policy Briefs
Part of: Vision 2027: Post-Conviction Justice Reform
Georgia Prisoners’ Speak | gps.press