ATLANTA — A Channel 2 investigation found a law crafted to protect Georgians is also protecting criminals.
Outcomes of millions of criminal charges are missing from the state criminal database.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said this failure wasn’t apparent until a 2013 bill sealed 5 million charges in their database overnight. Those outcomes were supposed to be reported by leaders in county courthouses, but statewide many have failed to do so.
Reporting failures have created holes in the state database. Missing information means judges may not know if there is a repeat offender in their courtroom.
"Oftentimes on a criminal calendar, I'd have a defendant standing in front of me and I've got less than full criminal history on him," said attorney William B. Hill Jr., who was a trial court judge for the state and Fulton Superior Court. "So I don't know how to deal with this case or deal with that individual."
Another unintended consequence is that a charge with missing outcomes may not show on an employment background search.
The employer would never know the prospective employee was even accused of the crime.
HUNT FOR MISSING RECORDS
"There could be someone out there who was convicted of a murder and it's not on their record?" Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Erica Byfield asked Dawn Diedrich, director of GBI's Office of Privacy and Compliance.
"Yes," Diedrich replied. "That's absolutely correct."
Accusations against a person are typically reported accurately, but Channel 2 discovered a breakdown in the process officials use to report the outcomes of those charges.
Now people are in warehouses and basements trying to find them.
The GBI is using its funds and grant money to hire a third-party vendor to retrieve dispositions for serious and violent felony charges.
The 2013 law was intended to seal records for charges that were never prosecuted.
Many Georgians wrongfully accused of crimes where facing employment challenges because open charges would sit on their criminal history for years.
But when court paperwork is not sent to the GBI, those charges also appear to be open in the state database.
Fulton County has the most missing dispositions in Metro Atlanta. Of the sealed serious felony records recovered, 45 percent of the time the person was actually convicted.
"Yes, I think we were all surprised," Diedrich told Byfield. "The entire criminal justice community was surprised… We don't want someone who's been convicted of murder to apply for a job and the employer not know that."
The law mandates the GBI restrict “open” misdemeanors after two years, some felonies at four years and most violent crimes, like murder, within seven years. Dispositions are missing from every county in the state.
"A violent offender will essentially escape a more severe punishment because we won't know what's on there," Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter explained to Byfield. "It's not a good situation."
Porter also serves as chair of the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council. He said state law isn't clear about who should send what records to the GBI.
Porter said individual clerks and prosecutors can work out a deal in their own courthouses, but more resources are needed to address the backlog of missing dispositions. Some date back to the 1960s.
All of the members of the judicial and law enforcement community Channel 2 spoke with for this report said infrastructure was a monumental challenge.
They said the GBI's charge-based depository was "antiquated" and in desperate need of an update.
"The money's going to have to be spent if you want accurate records," Porter said.
FELONY CONVICTIONS SEALED
The GBI's vendor was hired to dig through records in six counties to retrieve dispositions for serious or violent felonies. Through an open-records request, Channel 2 learned Fulton was missing dispositions for 432,521 charges.
Of the dispositions retrieved from Fulton County for serious or violent felonies, 45 percent of the restricted criminal charges were actually convictions. Thirty two percent of those felonies were still open charges, and 23 percent involved people found not guilty of the crime, according to the GBI's records.
"This is alarming, period. Whether it was on my watch or not," Fulton County Clerk of Superior Court Cathelene Robinson told Byfield after she saw those numbers.
Robinson said she is having conversations with the GBI and Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard in an effort to streamline reporting dispositions to the state.
NO STATEWIDE FIX
There is currently not a plan on the table to retrieve missing records in other counties.
With the limited funding the GBI has left, it is going to concentrate its efforts in Fulton County. Leaders predict they will only be able to retrieve 40,000 of the 140,000 remaining missing dispositions for serious or violent felonies with the rest of the money.
"We are doing as much as we can with what we have," Diedrich said.
Channel 2 contacted the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform to ask officials there about their knowledge of the missing records, and if they thought there was a need for legislation to address this issue. They say they are currently addressing legislation with respect to Georgia’s first-offender laws.
“Over the past five years of the Council's in-depth review and efforts to reform Georgia's criminal justice system, the maintenance and accuracy of criminal records in a digital age have been a persistent complication,” council co-chair Thomas Worthy said to Channel 2 in a statement.
Worthy also stated there was more to be done and thanked Channel 2 for exposing additional problems.