ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers approved legislation late Friday that would give innocent people who were convicted and sent to prison money for the time they spent behind bars, while also allowing defendants to recover legal costs when their prosecutor is disqualified and the case against them is dismissed.
Senate Bill 244 passed the Georgia Senate last month as a measure that only allowed defendants to recoup attorney fees and court costs when the case against them is dismissed following the disqualification of their prosecutor over improper conduct.
Then on Wednesday, the state House of Representatives added an amendment that would pay inmates $75,000 per year of incarceration when their conviction is reversed or vacated or they are pardoned. Those awaiting a death sentence would get $100,000 per year.
The bill, when it was only about attorney fees, had passed unanimously in the Senate, with Democrats backing it even though it could allow President Donald Trump and his co-defendants to recoup their legal costs in the election case brought against them by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis acknowledged romantic involvement with a prosecutor she had hired to help her with that case, and the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified her.
When Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta presented the amended measure on the Senate floor Friday evening, a Democrat brought up Trump’s call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger when Trump sought 11,780 votes after he lost the 2020 election.
“If the Supreme Court dismisses it, you don’t think those 15 defendants have some kind of right to get some compensation?” responded Beach, an ardent Trump supporter whom the president recently tapped to be U.S. Treasurer.
Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, said, “We should not pay Donald Trump’s legal fees for trying to break the laws of this state.”
The measure then passed 35-18, with the support of a few Democrats, sending it to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.