Television didn’t get the nickname “idiot box” without reason. When I ask my 4-year-old what he wants for dinner for the 14th time and he continues to stare into oblivion—I get it. Forensic professionals often feel the ire of poor television, too, as today’s crime shows can portray their work in an unrealistic way, using the wrong instrumentation for analyses, receiving results in minutes, and operating outside chain of custody, few examples.
Occasionally though, television can surprise you, move you in a way you don’t experience on an everyday basis. Such was the case last week when Archie Williams reached the finale of America’s Got Talent. Williams spent 36 years wrongfully imprisoned for a rape and stabbing he didn’t commit. As one of their oldest cases, the Innocence Project worked for more than 20 years to prove Williams’ innocence. In 2019, they succeeded and barely a year later, Williams received a standing ovation on the stage of a television show he used to watch in prison.
During the finals of America’s Got Talent last week, Williams did a tearful collaboration with Marvin Winans, a pastor and gospel singer whose songs and lyrics Williams credits with getting him through prison.
“Every song you ever sung, it just changed my whole life,” Williams told Winans before the duet. “It helped me in my journey through prison; it saved my life. I know millions wouldn’t make it, but I did.”
Make it he did, but the journey was far from easy.
In December 1982, a Baton Rouge woman was raped and a witness non-fatally stabbed when an assailant entered her house. In a live lineup that included Williams, the witness did not identify him. The victim did not either in the first three photo arrays she was shown, but, with his photo the only repeat in the photo lineups, the victim identified Williams the fourth time around. Additionally, numerous fingerprints were collected from the crime scene during investigation, including from the bedroom and door leading to the room where the rape occurred. Several of the prints were found near prints in blood and blood smears on the door. Williams was excluded from all identifiable prints. But, based solely on the victim’s identification of him, a 22-year-old Williams—who had an alibi—was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In December 1996, with Williams in prison for 14 years already, his attorneys filed a motion in state court asking for DNA testing. That motion was denied, as were at least nine others over the next 11 years that were filed in state and federal courts. Even after the Louisiana Legislature passed a law in 2001 explicitly granting access to post-conviction DNA testing, prosecutors opposed Williams’ motions seeking further testing.
DNA testing wasn’t available in 1982 but motile sperm was collected from the victim in the aftermath of the assault and preserved as evidence. Prosecutors claimed DNA testing of the sperm would not prove Williams’ guilt or innocence since the victim might have had consensual sex with her husband. Motile sperm, however, is only present for a few hours after deposit, leading the Innocence Project to argue that the DNA of two men would be present if that was the case. DNA testing was finally granted in 2009, with the results matching the victim’s husband, not Williams. This, however, was still not enough to overturn Williams’ conviction.
So, the defense team turned to the bloody fingerprints left at the crime scene. The team had been requesting database searches of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) to prove Williams’ innocence, but without a statutory right to search the fingerprint database, the state opposed all efforts. Then, in 2014, Next Generation Identification (NGI) replaced IAFIS and Williams finally got the break he deserved.
On March 14, 2019, fingerprint experts at Ron Smith & Associates, in conjunction with the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab, submitted the suitable fingerprint lifts taken from the crime scene into NGI. This search led to an identification of a known individual, Stephen Forbes, a man who had committed similar sexual assaults in the same neighborhood as the victim in Williams’ case.
On March 21, 2019, Williams walked out of prison a free man. On May 26, 2020, Williams wow’ed the judges, live audience and television audience with his rendition of Elton John’s “Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” The Louisiana native made it all the way to the show’s finale, which aired on Sept. 23.
“After almost four decades of pursuing justice, it took analysts mere hours to run fingerprints collected at the crime scene through a national database and find a match to the actual perpetrator of the crime,” the Innocence Project said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there are far too many people like Mr. Williams who are still imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. We at the Innocence Project are thankful that Mr. Williams’ exoneration and freedom give him the opportunity to share his tremendous talents with the world, and shed light on the systemic problem of wrongful convictions.”
“There are many innocent people at Angola (Louisiana State Penitentiary)—guys who have served over 50 years. I’m happy to be cleared finally, but I’m not free until they are free,” Williams said at the time of his exoneration.
The background of Williams’ case was provided by The Innocence Project. Photo: Archie Williams with his devoted family and his legal team moments after his exoneration on March 21, 2019. Credit: Innocence Project New Orleans.