Restitution has been a part of criminal sentencing for centuries. It’s simply the concept that defendants owe victims for their financial losses. But in the 1980s, the victim’s rights movement pushed to expand restitution to include intangibles like psychological harm and future losses. It has also grown to involve reimbursing insurance companies and state governments. After the Mandatory Restitution Act was passed in 1996, which required defendants to pay the full amount of victim’s losses in federal cases, all 50 states enacted similar statutes.
These days, states have tens of millions of dollars in uncollected restitution orders, and scores of defendants are incarcerated because they can’t pay. Harold Doby III is one of those people who lost his freedom after failing to pay a six-figure restitution. While reflecting on how common restitution stories like Doby’s are, Tim Curry of the Fines and Fees Justice Center told The Marshall Project, “So much happens in small courtrooms where no one is watching. This is a problem everywhere."
My case began in the winter of 2019, when I was 28 years old. I had gone out to a bar in Augusta, Georgia, called the Limelight Café to celebrate a promotion. At the time, I was working at a chemical plant and was about to become an operator in charge of overseeing processes and safety protocols. A brutal fight broke out while I was at the Limelight. As I was leaving the bar, several men connected to that altercation approached my car. Fearing for my safety, I fired a gun that I owned legally, injuring one of them. The whole incident left me shaken.
In Richmond County, I’m known widely for my years of playing basketball for Augusta University and for organizing programs like food and clothing drives, basketball camps and cookouts that support the youth and aid the needy. I had never been convicted of any crime before and had no idea I was wanted by the police. But a couple days after that shooting incident at the Limelight, the local media painted me like I was a crook on the run. After my mother told me that my face was all over the news, I turned myself in, and I was charged with aggravated assault and aggravated battery.
I intended to plead not guilty and go to trial, but I was encouraged by my attorney at the time to take an open plea. The point was to show contrition to the court and to take advantage of Georgia’s First Offender Act, which is supposed to give people with clean records a second chance after they complete their sentences. My lawyer and the judge, Daniel J. Craig, never really explained how it actually worked to me. But because I knew that I had done nothing except defend myself, I didn’t worry about it too much. My three co-defendants had already been sentenced. The longest probation sentence one of them got was 10 years and they did not have to pay restitution. That was the worst case scenario in my mind. And I preferred it over the expenses and uncertainty of a trial.
As I awaited my court date, which took years, my case wasn’t my only concern. I was dealing with the death of my grandmother and serious health issues that began in 2022. That May, back at the Limelight Café, I got tased in the eye by a Richmond County sheriff who was trying to break up a fight.
If you’re not from Augusta, it might be hard for you to understand why I’d gone back to the Limelight in the first place. But that is one of the only spots we have in town. I went back there because I try to be positive and not carry around the negativity of my shooting arrest.
That Taser injury changed my life almost as much as the shooting — I had to have major surgery and I lost my right eye.
On the day of my sentencing in October, I was completely out of it. I didn’t really know what was going on because I was in such a distraught state over my health. I fell further into depression when Judge Craig sentenced me to serve 20 years probation. And it was my use of the First Offender Act that gave him so much discretion over the length of my probation.
If I had known that I could get that much time under supervision, I would have pleaded not guilty and taken my case to trial. While the First Offender Act still gave me the possibility of one day getting a clean record and sealed criminal history under the law, it would only happen if I met all the conditions set by Judge Craig. And he made those conditions virtually impossible by also ordering me to pay back a restitution of $155,000 within one year. The man I shot would get $90,000, and $65,000 would go to another victim of the fight.
I told the judge right then and there at the sentencing, “Your Honor, I don’t make that kind of money.” He just looked at me and said, “Look around the courtroom and ask them for help,” referring to a crowd of community members and family that I had rallied to support me in court. I don’t think he realized that it’s not normal for anyone to have six figures just lying around. I tried to ask my lawyer to withdraw my guilty plea because I never understood what I had actually agreed to in the first place. But it was too late. I was going to learn that justice isn’t blind — it’s expensive.
In the months following my sentencing in 2022, I never had a restitution hearing or a chance to present what I could realistically pay. I never got clear answers about how the amount was even calculated. And it’s still unclear to me if all of these bills they say I owe have already been covered by the victims’ insurance.
With my own eye injury, I was on medical leave from my job at the chemical plant, because I was suffering from migraines and dizziness. After my medical leave ran out in November 2022, I was laid off. If it weren’t for my mother and EBT, I would have been starving during that time. But even without my job, and no other money coming in, and my declining health, I still managed to make restitution payments every month with whatever I had. Sometimes it was $100, and sometimes it was only $10, but it was always something.
One year after the sentencing, I was close to getting on disability for my eye injury, which would have allowed me to make higher restitution payments. The only step I had left was a physical examination. On Oct. 12, 2023, just before that examination was to take place, I had a hearing in front of Judge Craig. I went to court in a fresh button-down shirt, some light blue slacks and some brown church shoes, thinking that I was about to get my probation modified for good behavior and get the burden of my restitution lowered because of my disability. Instead, as punishment for failing to pay off the $155,000 in one year, he resentenced me to 20 years on each battery count and five for a firearm charge to be served in prison rather than at home on parole.
I only know that Judge Craig actually said the words “45 years” because of the court transcripts. I was so depressed by the idea of going to prison that I just didn’t hear him. Even after being held in the county jail for six days, I thought that the court was just trying to scare me. It was only when I was at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, shivering cold in my underwear as guards processed me for admittance into the state’s carceral system, that it finally hit me: I might die in prison simply because I was poor — because I couldn’t afford to buy my way to freedom.
After being evaluated at the prison in Jackson in the fall of 2023, I was sent to Washington State Prison. I was glad to leave Georgia Diagnostic; the dorms and common areas there are deplorable and dirty, with rats the size of cats. They feed you cold food and they don’t serve you anything after 3:30 p.m. And there are many people there suffering from mental health issues and not getting any kind of treatment. When they shaved my head bald and slapped a tag on my wrist that said “release date — possibly 2067,” I knew I had to wake up, take control of my life, try to fight my case and get out of there.
I spent two to three hours a day while I was incarcerated at Washington focused on restitution, studying in the law library and inside my cell. It was there that I learned about the Supreme Court case of Bearden v. Georgia from the 1980s, which basically ruled that courts can’t revoke someone’s probation for nonpayment unless that person is willfully refusing to pay or to make a bona fide effort. Armed with this knowledge, I got a new public defender and provided him the information on my case to e-file an appeal. And by the grace of God, on Sept. 11, 2024, the Court of Appeals vacated and remanded my probation revocation. I had won — or at least I thought I did. On Sept. 26 I was released from prison but transferred to Richmond County Jail where I was held for another three months.
Richmond County Jail released me December 2024. When my mom picked me up, it was a bittersweet feeling. Although I was technically free, I was still on the hook for the restitution. Before retiring, Judge Daniel Craig ordered that I would get a six-month pause on having to make restitution payments to try to take care of my health and find work. But in May 2025, I would have to make a $500 installments each month or default, which could land me back in prison. This amount was picked arbitrarily, without any real conversation about my actual ability to pay. All I kept thinking was, How can I rebuild my life when my freedom depends on a debt I never had a fair chance to discuss?
Winning my appeal should have been the beginning of a new chapter, but instead I live with the anxiety of wondering what will happen as I fall short. I’m still trying to get on disability. Because my reincarceration caused me to miss my disability exams, I’ve had to start that process from the very beginning. I also found work at a factory, inspecting and packing fiberglass. I make around $4,300 a month. But once I pay to care for my two kids, my car note and insurance, and help my mom with utilities, I have nothing left. So while I’ve paid what I can on the restitution since May, I live in constant fear because I just don’t make enough money. I feel like I’m climbing a mountain that keeps getting taller the more I climb. I try to work, to be a father, to contribute to my community, but there’s always a shadow — a reminder that I’m just a few missed payments from losing it all again.
I’ve met others in my situation — people who came home from prison determined to do better, but faced impossible restitution demands. Some give up. Some go back to old habits because they feel like the system has already written them off. But I refuse to quit. My faith and my daughters won’t let me. I’ve been through too much to give up now.
In February, I flew out to New York and joined the Reform Alliance. They’ve followed my story since I was incarcerated. While there, I met some people who connected me with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which is now helping me with my case pro bono. But not much has changed. Several of my motions have not received responses, and my court dates continue to be pushed back, causing further delays in resolving my case and hopefully getting my restitution dismissed.
Every day I remind myself that my story isn’t over. What was meant to break me has become my motivation. I’ve learned that God’s purpose doesn’t always come with comfort — sometimes it comes through pain, through lessons, through tests you never expected to face. I’m still here because there’s something greater ahead of me.
Harold Doby III is a former professional basketball player from Augusta, Georgia, who turned pain into purpose. He is the author of a memoir, “Blessings in the Dark: All Dark Moments, Not a Nightmare,” and a motivational speaker and founder of Doby Motivation LLC. He inspires youth and communities by proving that setbacks can’t stop a calling.
Christopher Scott Connell, Doby’s lawyer in October 2022, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.