As COVID-19 weighs on our minds, consider the impact it has on people in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons, especially for the innocent, elderly, and infirm. Safety is paramount, but mental health and well-being - staying calm and positive - is also also critically important.
You can help!

By clicking the link below, you can submit a brief note of encouragement. We will collect and share the responses with our clients to lift their spirits and remind them that people care and they are not alone. (You have the option of remaining anonymous if you prefer!)

COVID-19 is spreading in prisons, impacting incarcerated people (including the wrongly convicted), staff, and adjacent communities and their hospitals and health care systems.

Two steps taken now will help in Georgia: 1) Access to hand sanitizer by people incarcerated in Georgia prisons; 2) Decompressing the crowded prison population through decarceration and release of eligible elderly, infirm, and nonviolent prisoners. These steps allow for increased physical distancing in prisons, more effective hygiene practices, and reduced exposure risks and pressure on corrections staff. By reducing the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and resultant hospitalizations, impacts on adjacent communities and health systems are mitigated.

At Georgia Innocence Project, our work to secure freedom and justice for our clients continues, even as the COVID-19 virus creates daily barriers and ongoing challenges.

In this unprecedented and insecure time, we are adapting to the new challenges that we all face. We come together in community, even as we are separated.

Please click the link below to learn more about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting GIP, our work, and our clients - and how we are responding.

Last night, COVID-19 took the life of a man imprisoned at Lee State Prison in Georgia. More will come. The virus is spreading like wildfire in prisons, which are densely crowded and often unsanitary. Prisons and jails must decarcerate now to slow this virus, reduce suffering and save lives.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/breaking-inmate-dies-from-covid-outbreak-worsens-prison/TzQZL4uXfK4GzH9ebSFNQN/

Georgia's Attorney General's Office again fights to keep an innocent man in prison, arguing he's too late to seek justice and freedom.

On Monday, the AG's Office asked the Georgia Supreme Court to reconsider it's UNANIMOUS decision that Joey Watkins (an imprisoned, innocent man) could proceed on a second habeas because his new claims were neither too late nor barred as successive.

Fortunately, today the Georgia Supreme Court swiftly, and in a one-sentence order, denied the AG's motion to reconsider. Here's to Justice for Joey!

Georgia Supreme Court finds in favor of GIP Client Johnny Lee Gates!

The Georgia Supreme Court recently issued a great decision in our Johnny Lee Gates case, which we are co-counseling with the Southern Center for Human Rights.

The Court affirmed the lower court’s order granting Johnny a new trial based on new exculpatory DNA evidence. The Supreme Court also found “very troubling” the findings regarding the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s race discrimination in jury selection during Johnny’s death penalty trial and in several others at the time.