Archie Williams, a 59-year-old man from Louisiana who spent 36 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, will perform on America’s Got Talent at 8 PM ET tonight on NBC. Cheer him on!
He was convicted in 1983 at age 22 and sentenced to life without parole. The Innocence Project took up his case in the mid-1990s and worked for decades to help prove his innocence. After years of work and a search of fingerprint evidence in the FBI database, Archie was finally freed and all charges against him were dismissed.
Archie’s story moved the entire audience on America’s Got Talent, but one person in particular was especially touched: Simon Cowell.
After hearing about Archie’s experience, Simon was moved to take action and has officially become an Innocence Project Ambassador, saying, “Archie’s performance is probably the single most important one in the history of America’s Got Talent … I’m honored to become an Ambassador for the Innocence Project and want to do what I can to help more people like Archie.”
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
