ATLANTA — Those serving on a national review board charged with revisiting cold cases from the era of segregation will have more time to investigate - and will be held accountable - now that Sen. Jon Ossoff's civil rights bill has been signed into law.
The U.S. senator, representing Georgia, had been pushing for the bipartisan Civil Rights Cold Case Investigations Support Act of 2022. He introduced the bill alongside Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
The law now extends the tenure of those sitting on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board. The review board is tasked with investigating cold cases and finding the culprits of murders that happened between 1940-1979. It was authorized and signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2019.
Board members were supposed to fulfill four-year terms and were authorized to work through 2024, but were not nominated until last year, according to a news release from Ossoff's office. The new law extends their term through 2027 to give members, once confirmed, more time to help meet the purpose of the board.
Members will examine unsolved murders and help identify victims of lynchings, according to a release from Ossoff's Office.
"The work of pursuing justice can continue for the Black women, Black children, Black men who were killed in some of the most heinous ways in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s," he said in a prepared statement.
At the Capitol, Ossoff has highlighted Georgia cases that he feels deserve closure. He pointed to Emory University's Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Projects record of Alphonso Harris, who was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was killed in Albany, Georgia in 1966. Ossoff also spoke of Ernest Hunter, who was killed during an altercation in 1958 at the Camden County Jail in St. Mary's, according to the university's archive.
"With those crimes being swept under the rug and never investigated this is an opportunity to pursue justice and truth on behalf of those who were killed," the senator said. "There's no expiration on justice."
