‘Breakdown’ special episode: Devonia Inman is a free man

Inman, the subject of ‘Breakdown’ Season 4, is finally free after 23 years in prison for a wrongful conviction.
Devonia Inman gives a thumbs-up as he is driven away from Augusta State Medical Prison, after serving 23 years in prison for a wrongful conviction. His case was featured in the fourth season of the AJC's "Breakdown" podcast. (Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com)

Credit: Curtis Compton

Credit: Curtis Compton

Devonia Inman gives a thumbs-up as he is driven away from Augusta State Medical Prison, after serving 23 years in prison for a wrongful conviction. His case was featured in the fourth season of the AJC's "Breakdown" podcast. (Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com)

Devonia Inman, after spending 23 years behind bars for a wrongful conviction, is finally a free man.

After being stymied repeatedly by Georgia’s court system, a ruling by a North Georgia judge and a decision by a relatively new district attorney suddenly led to Inman’s release from incarceration in December. How this fell into place is explained in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Breakdown” podcast.

The seventh and final episode of Season Four — “Murder Below The Gnat Line” — includes interviews with Inman and his jubilant parents on the roadside across from the prison and after they returned to their home in California.

“I would give my soul up for the ones that helped me,” said Inman, who has always maintained his innocence. “I forgive the ones that didn’t, because you have to in order to go to heaven.”

Cook County District Attorney Chase Studstill also gives his reasons for moving to dismiss the charges that had kept the 43-year-old Inman in prison for more than half his life. And he doesn’t mince words as to what he thought about the murder case that went to trial two decades ago.