Exonerated man looks to rebuild after 16 years of lost time in prison

Brandon Pugh was exonerated after spending 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. But stepping out of the Georgia prison proved not to be the end of the uphill battle the father of two faced after his wrongful conviction.

Now, he is working to get his life back after 18 long years behind bars.

Exonerees in Georgia have a new pathway to obtain compensation from the state, which Pugh intends to pursue, but that process takes time. Meanwhile, the wrongfully convicted have to reenter society: reconnect with family members, gain much-needed access to healthcare services and eventually find work again.

Pugh didn’t have high blood pressure before his time in prison, but now he does.

He lost his job as a tug operator working for Delta Air Lines when police arrested him at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport back in 2008, a job that he had worked hard to move up to after obtaining certifications.

But the hardest thing he has come to accept is the amount of time he missed.

His sons were elementary school-aged children when he was sent to prison. He missed out on birthdays, holidays, prom, graduation and other milestones that fathers cherish, Pugh said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“That’s time I can’t get back, memories I can’t get back,” Pugh said. “They robbed me of my memories.”

In the immense task of overturning a conviction, it took a dedicated appellate legal team, a DA willing to take another look at an old case and a family of “prayer warriors” who never lost faith to get him out, Pugh said.

But the challenges don’t end when coming out of prison. Jon Eldan is the founder of After Innocence, a nonprofit that provides reentry services for Pugh and other exonerees across the country to help ease that transition.

Many need assistance obtaining important documents, finding housing, accessing healthcare and getting workforce training, to name a few. The nonprofit has served over 800 people across the country, Eldan said.

“We have a great need that isn’t being met,” he said. “There’s a lot of adjustment and greeting a world that, in many ways, has moved on.”

A years-old conviction, and a DA who ‘left no stone unturned’

Brandon Pugh worked late at the airport that night in 2008. On his way home, he stopped at a gas station, where his car was stolen in the wee hours of the morning.

He tried to report the carjacking but was in the wrong police jurisdiction, so he waited until morning when his parents could give him a ride to the station, his attorney, Elizabeth Brandenburg, said in an interview.

The following morning, his stolen Cadillac was used as a getaway car in an armed bank robbery. The two robbers stole $18,000 from a Wachovia bank in Douglas County. When authorities later recovered Pugh’s car, they deemed him a suspect.

Brandon Pugh's stolen Cadillac was used in an armed bank robbery in 2008. That and a cascade of circumstantial evidence led to him being convicted of the crime in 2010. (Abbey Cutrer/AJC)

A cascade of circumstantial evidence followed — suspected bank dye on his hand and a neighbor contradicting Pugh’s account of being home all morning — loosely tying Pugh to a robbery he didn’t commit. He was convicted in 2010 after a series of trial missteps, some of which his current attorney says were glaring even at the time.

DNA evidence later connected another man to the robbery, who was then convicted and said he had never met Pugh, Brandenburg said.

Brandenburg approached Douglas County District Attorney Dalia Racine, then the new DA who had created a Justice Integrity Unit dedicated to reviewing exoneration and resentencing claims. She also had a letter from the Georgia Innocence Project, which supported the case review.

Racine’s unit — one assistant district attorney and one investigator — then found even more evidence exonerating Pugh. Although her office wasn’t the team that prosecuted his case back then, she felt it was her duty to get him released if he was innocent, she said.

“It was like, ‘This is now on us. Every day that Brandon stays in prison — from this moment forward of us completing this investigation, to his release — is on us,’” Racine said in an interview with the AJC.

Not all prosecutors are open to exoneration claims. Christina Cribbs, the litigation director at the Georgia Innocence Project who wrote the letter of support, said having a cooperative DA makes a massive difference in how long it can take to free someone wrongfully convicted: a difference of years or even a decade, she said.

“A prosecutor’s job is to do justice, right? Not to get convictions or defend convictions,” Cribbs said. “With that backdrop, we always hope that folks will do the right thing.”

Fulton and Douglas are the only two DAs in Georgia with units dedicated to reviewing exoneration claims, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, which notes that some offices may also review cases without a specified unit.

Both offices have had success. A man who spent two decades behind bars was exonerated June 18 in Fulton with the emergence of new DNA evidence, marking the third exoneration for Fulton’s unit, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

In Douglas, once the DA and Pugh’s attorney presented the evidence to a judge and the case was dismissed, he was released from prison that day, Brandenburg said.

“It takes someone willing to take a look, and they did that,” she said. “They left no stone unturned.”

After exoneration

Brandon Pugh has a positive outlook on his time in prison. He taught anger management classes and mentored other inmates. He read his Bible, praying that one day he would get out and get to see his children again, he said.

“You can be bitter, or you can be better. I chose to be better,” he said.

But behind the positivity is a sadness for the time he missed. In those 18 years he was behind bars, he stayed in touch with his family and his sons, who also visited him sometimes in prison, he said.

Now, he has to get to know his children all over again. They are 25 and 20 — adults with their own lives.

“I’m looking at them a certain way, as kids,” Pugh said. “Now, I get out, and they’re grown.”

In Georgia, like in many states, the only recourse exonerees have to make up for the time lost is compensation. Georgia and 40 other states have passed wrongful conviction compensation laws. Here, it’s a dedicated system through which those who have had their convictions overturned can get $75,000 per year that they were wrongfully incarcerated, or $100,000 if they were on death row.

Brandon Pugh is focused on spending as much time as possible with his adult sons now that he has been exonerated and is back at home. (Abbey Cutrer/AJC)

The compensation doesn’t, however, help address the immediate needs Pugh and other exonerees inevitably have after so long behind bars. Even those on parole have access to state resources when coming out of prison, while exonerees don’t, said Cribbs with the Georgia Innocence Project.

“They’re just sort of thrown out there with no help, no programs, no assistance,” she said.

One of Racine’s concerns was making sure Pugh was not only released but also given the support he would need upon reentry, she said. Her office works to connect victims with support and resources, and she felt he should be no different.

“There’s no less that obligation for people who are exonerated and are innocent and who have been brutally victimized by our system,” Racine said.

The DA completely cleared Pugh’s record, used her contacts to connect him with the nonprofit After Innocence to help with reentry, and wrote a letter he can provide to potential employers verifying his exoneration. That letter, Eldan says, will be a big help in addressing another hurdle exonerees face: having to explain their story. How would one even begin to explain a decade-long gap in a resume, let alone years in prison, without deterring future employers?

“Some folks out there will hold it against you that you were in prison, even if you were innocent,” Eldan said.

Crafting a compelling narrative, being up front about the situation and providing documentation, is the best way Eldan said he has found to help exonerees make their case.

“If the story is told well, it’s a story that turns people in favor of the exoneree. It gives them a strong reason to help,” he said. “Most people will step up, and it’ll turn this experience into something that, as it should be, as a reason for strangers to give somebody a hand.”

Pugh said for now, he’s spending as much time with family as he can, and when he does reenter the workforce in a month or two, he’ll be armed with the DA’s letter and a redemption story he hopes will incline people to give him a shot, just like the DA did, he said.