The Innocence Project represented Archie for 24 years, the longest the organization has litigated a case to exoneration.
Final stretch for 2019
John,
When Archie Williams first wrote to the Innocence Project in 1995, his letter had words that stayed with me throughout the long fight for his freedom:
“As the years go by I sit here year after year; it’s like no one cares.”
The Innocence Project represented Archie for 24 years, the longest we have ever litigated a case to exoneration. Like more than 70 percent of people later exonerated by DNA testing, Archie’s wrongful conviction involved an eyewitness misidentification — in his case, only a single identification procured by police through highly suggestive procedures.
Archie Williams moments after his exoneration on March 21, 2019. Photo by Innocence Project New Orleans.
This year, Archie is spending the holidays at home with his family for the first time in decades. We rejoice for him, but we still have so much work to do to fix the callous system that ignored the red flags in his case and indications that he was innocent.
Research shows it is possible to conduct eyewitness identification procedures in ways that minimize the risk of errors. The Innocence Project works nationwide with criminal justice stakeholders and lawmakers to assure that procedures used for eyewitness identifications reduce the risk of wrongful conviction, and we won’t stop until every state has laws to protect against errors like the one that cost Archie decades of his life.
Vanessa Potkin
Director of Post-Conviction Litigation
Innocence Project
Started in 1992 as a legal clinic at Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project is now an independent nonprofit, affiliated with Cardozo, that exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
