Charles Brown: Wrongfully convicted, incarcerated and fighting for justice

Atlanta, GA – Since 2024, Charles Brown has been bounced around the Georgia state incarceration system, from facility to facility. He has spent the last two years trying to figure out why he’s sitting behind bars and trying to obtain the documentation that can help him get out.

To better understand Charles Brown’s struggle, you’ll have to start in Crisp County, Georgia in 2014. Charles Brown was one of 300 plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed against the state of Georgia by the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR).

The SCHR argued that, from 2012 to 2014, low-income adults and juveniles were denied legal representation, appeared without lawyers at trial and were pressured into guilty plea deals. The core argument was that these individuals had their Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights violated. The result was “assembly line justice,” where 300 individuals were pressured to take guilty plea deals and wrongful convictions.

After some time being incarcerated and experiencing mental health battles, Charles Brown was put on parole. During his time on parole, Charles Brown routinely dealt with faulty ankle monitoring equipment. The equipment would malfunction, leading to routine check-ins by his parole officer. “I just wanted to be given a fair chance to prove that I wouldn’t violate my parole,” Brown said, describing the situation.

He told his PO about the faulty equipment, but his PO would not listen nor care. Left without much option, he reported his parole officer to the Board of Paroles and Pardons on multiple occasions. Rather than investigate the multiple reports of faulty equipment, his parole officer told him, “If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you,” and went radio silent on him for a year.

A year went by and Brown had no contact with his parole officer with no check-ins or updates on the status, conditions or circumstances of his parole term. Then, in an act of retaliation, 72 hours before his parole officer transferred, he put out an arrest warrant for Brown.

In November 2024, Charles Brown was then arrested during a routine traffic stop. He’s since then been moved between different facilities throughout the state facing inhumane conditions.

For him, the question remains the same: “What legal instrument is being used to keep me locked up?”

No one from the state has given him a clear answer. He and his family have filed multiple open records requests in the hopes of proving his wrongful incarceration, and the state has refused to release the documents every single time. These records will clarify if there is a present legal instrument that is keeping Charles Brown incarcerated, and may be the key to his freedom.

Charles is currently seeking legal counsel so he can get this information to the right people in power in order to secure his release.

Before he was arrested, Brown was deeply involved in the community and was known for organizing with GSU students around Palestine, Haiti, and the movement for justice for Sonya Massey.

When asked about his demands, Brown stated, “Immediate release, accountability, transparency.”

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