On July 5, 1994, a young woman was attacked as she was taking out her trash. For weeks she had been receiving harassing phone calls, and the day after the Fourth of July an assailant showed up at her home, shoved her inside and attempted to rape her. A struggle ensued and the attacker ripped off the victim’s spandex pants, but she was able to escape and reach a handgun – she fired at the intruder and he fled.
At 7:19 pm on January 11, 2000, Rome-Floyd County 911 dispatched an ambulance to the scene of a single vehicle accident on Hwy 27, which runs between Rome and Cedartown, GA. The driver, 21 year old Isaac Dawkins, was rushed to the hospital. X-rays would later reveal that Isaac had been shot in the head; he died shortly thereafter.
In 2001, a woman walked in on a man who was in the process of burglarizing her home in Savannah, Georgia. The man sexually assaulted the woman at knife-point, then fled with some of her belongings. Before the woman was assaulted, she noticed that the man was wearing blue and white batting gloves.
After 25 years behind bars for a crime that never happened, Lee Clark was exonerated and walked out of Floyd County Jail into the arms of dozens of friends, families, and loved ones on December 8th, 2022.
High court hears AG appeal from Watkins case Outlet: Rome News-TribuneAuthor: John BaileyPublished: 10/4/2022Read: Here
Despite compelling information showing that the State convicted the wrong man, it took a massive team effort that spanned almost a decade to correct this obvious injustice. In December of 2021 Devonia walked out of Augusta State Medical Prison and into the arms of family just in time to celebrate his first Christmas as a free man in more than two decades.
At 61 years old, after spending more than half his life incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, Ron Jacobsen has at last been fully exonerated.
Together with co-counsel, GIP secured a new trial for Dennis in a 35-year-old double murder he didn’t commit. He was released on bond July 23,2020. While the fight isn’t over, Dennis is enjoying the little things, like time with his grandchildren, earning his driver’s permit, and road trips with his loving wife, Brenda.
Despite profoundly unreliable evidence, Terry was convicted of several crimes against White women in 1980s Troop County. GIP fought for years: obtaining DNA testing that proved innocence, uncovering buried evidence and official misconduct, and even partnering with police – all culminating in four exonerations and Terry’s freedom in February 2021.
Johnny Lee Gates spent more than 43 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. On May 15, 2020, he walked free from Muscogee County Jail.
