More than two decades later, Joey Watkins walked out a free. He found there isn't much support for exonerees to get back on their feet.
So far, 38 states and DC have laws in place to compensate wrongfully convicted citizens. Georgia isn’t one of them.ROME, Ga. — Joey Watkins was 20 years old when he was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he did not commit. More than two decades later, the 42-year-old walked out a free man.
In the months since his name was officially cleared the cameras have packed up, the national headlines dwindled to an occasional reference, and Watkins went back to his hometown of Rome, Georgia, to try to move on."The air conditioning doesn't work," Watkins apologized as he cracked open the front door to a small 800-square-foot property in Rome."I still have to fix that."
"It's a little suck in the 70s style," Watkins laughed as he gestured to the wood-paneled covered walls."But beggars can't be choosers, I guess." "The banks can't loan me any money or give me a line of credit because I can't show two years of tax returns," Watkins said."They say it's something they can't get around. So I'm kind out in the water, hoping and praying.”
"It was emotional," Dempsey said through tears."Very powerful. Any one of us at any time, from mistaken identity to other things, hold the possibility of something like this happening."
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