A year ago, Lathan Rydell Word came within minutes of receiving $400,000 for serving more than 11 years behind bars for a crime he was cleared of committing.
A resolution to compensate the Columbus man passed the House last year and, after being slightly amended, passed the Senate. But time ran out on the final day of the 2012 session before the House could adopt the Senate’s modification for final approval.
This year, Rep. Carolyn Hugely, D-Columbus, is trying again to get Word compensated for his wrongful conviction in 2000. House Resolution 73 has passed the House once again but is now being held up in the Senate as this year’s General Assembly closes in on adjournment Thursday.
Word was convicted of the 1999 armed robbery of Jennie & Joe’s Curb Market in Columbus. A single witness, store clerk Contresstis Tolbert, testified that he saw Word enter with a gun and a plastic bag over his head and leave with $300.
Word’s conviction was overturned on appeal in 2011, but prosecutors sought to retry him again. During the new trial, Tolbert, who is serving a life sentence for murder and armed robbery, told prosecutors he was lying when he initially pointed blame at Word and wasn’t going to lie about it anymore.
That same day, Word was a free man.
In a letter to lawmakers, Word, now 31, said he was arrested shortly before he was to report for basic training for the U.S. Marine Corps and he wonders now what his life would be like had he not been wrongly charged.
“I have grown past the point of pointing blame for my incarceration,” he wrote. The compensation will not make up for the lost time, “but it will open up a new window of opportunity for me to start building and chasing new dreams.”
Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, is the chief opponent to Word’s compensation package, which has bipartisan support.
“The state cannot prove without reasonable doubt that Mr. Lathan Rydell Word is innocent of committing armed robbery more than a decade ago,” he said. “… We need to remove any burden of doubt before dolling out $400,000 in taxpayer funds to compensate for a wrongful conviction.”
Hugely said the issue has already been decided. It is not up to the state Legislature to judge whether the courts were right, she said. “The courts have spoken: The man was wrongly convicted.”
Sen. Horacena Tate, D-Atlanta, agreed.
“I think it’s very unfortunate that the state wants to have such pushback in compensating someone who did nothing wrong,” she said. “We need to step up to the plate and help this young man get his life back together.”
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