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| Man exonerated in rape after 22 years in prison - |
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victims cry
 Posted:
Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:15 pm |
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Man exonerated in rape after 22 years in prison
Man exonerated in rape after nearly 22 years in prison
The Associated Press - ATLANTA
After proclaiming his innocence from prison for nearly 22 years, a man who has been cleared of a rape conviction by DNA evidence took his final steps toward becoming a free man on Tuesday.
Willie O. "Pete" Williams has spent nearly half his life in a Georgia prison. He was convicted of aggravated sodomy, kidnapping and rape when the victim identified him as the perpetrator in the April 1985 incident.
Williams was sentenced to 45 years. He would not have been eligible for parole until November 2021 at the earliest. Had he served his entire sentence, he would not have been released until May 13, 2030, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections Web site.
Now, Williams could be free as soon as Tuesday night. Fulton County sheriff's deputies were headed back from the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston on Tuesday afternoon and were expected to arrive late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.
Williams' mother, Judy Beglar, said she could hardly stand the wait and did not sleep Monday night.
"It's been almost 22 years," Beglar said, noting that she has not been able to hug her son in four or five years. "I really cannot put my feelings into works. I'm happy. I can't wait to see him, to hug him, to love on him."
Beglar said she always knew her son was innocent, and was no longer angry over his wrongful incarceration. She said she looks forward to his homecoming and the start of his new life.
"He doesn't have time to feel sorry for himself. We're going to be doing some of everything," she smiled.
Williams' younger brother, Greg Holloway, quietly admitted he is looking forward to fishing, watching football and basketball games and just doing "the simple stuff that brothers do."
"I didn't have that male role model in my life," Holloway said when asked about the effect of his brother's absence. "I can't explain how I feel."
Holloway was 13 years old when his brother went to prison. Williams' younger sister, Tracy, was 15, and said life without her oldest brother was difficult, but her family leaned on their faith and waited for this day.
"We prayed and relied on God and knew that God would put somebody in our path" to help them, Tracy said.
Williams wrote to the Georgia Innocence Project in July 2005, after the agency's executive director sent a letter to all Georgia inmates convicted of rape. The Georgia Innocence Project examines cases where DNA evidence is available to test and there is a compelling claim of innocence.
The Innocence Project has freed 192 wrongly convicted inmates nationwide since 1992. Williams becomes the sixth Georgia inmate freed.
The Georgia agency took up Williams' case last year, and 27-year-old Georgia State University College of Law student Cliff Williams _ who Beglar said she now sees as a son _ worked on his behalf.
Atlanta defense attorney Bruce Harvey, who also volunteered to work on the case for free, said the news was absolutely phenomenal.
"It's redemption for him, and a continuing indictment of a system that relies almost entirely, in these kinds of cases, on evidence that we now know is the least reliable type of evidence available: eyewitness identification," Harvey said in a Tuesday morning telephone interview about his client's impending release.
Harvey said he plans to take Williams and his family out to dinner for a meal of steak and a baked potato.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard on Monday ordered Williams' release after he was exonerated.
"We are convinced today Mr. Williams was not responsible for this," Howard said at a news conference.
Howard said he has started an investigation to find the actual rapist in the 1985 attack on a woman at an apartment complex parking lot in Sandy Springs.
Howard said Williams would be returned to Fulton County from the Folkston prison and released on his own recognizance before the charges are officially cleared in about two weeks.
Williams' family and lawyers will be waiting for him, with a pair of khakis, a red plaid, button down shirt, sneakers, a gray hooded sweatshirt and hugs.
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On Vacation!
Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 9299
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| dugo
Posted:
Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:16 am |
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Hurray for the project!!!
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Dashing Dutch Dynamo Dude
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6032
Location: L4L
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| resigned
Posted:
Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:40 am |
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AHA!!........................there is a Holloway connection! I don't know what it could mean, but I just wanted to type, AHA!
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 27705
Location: "Onboard" pathenry's desk
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| cougermom
Posted:
Sat Jun 02, 2007 10:09 am |
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???
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Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 157
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| Heli
Posted:
Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:28 pm |
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| resigned wrote: | AHA!!........................there is a Holloway connection! I don't know what it could mean, but I just wanted to type, AHA!
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Geez, Virgie Arthur pops up everywhere 
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Transcription Goddess
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 23422
Location: Puffed Up DimWit
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| SavannahStar
Posted:
Fri Oct 26, 2007 7:18 am |
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A follow-up on this case:
Innocent man shares his 20-year struggle behind bars
Story Highlights
Man who lost half his life in wrongful conviction lets go of anger, looks ahead
Misidentification in 1985 rape case imprisoned Willie Williams for 22 years
"I felt betrayed ... I felt like these people had taken my life," says Williams
DNA evidence has directly exonerated 208 wrongly convicted people in U.S.
By Thom Patterson
CNN
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Willie "Pete" Williams had no idea when he was pulled over by police that the criminal justice system was about to steal away half his life.
Sitting in the flashing glow of Atlanta squad car lights along Georgia State Road 400, the 23-year-old part-time house painter didn't know police were looking for a rapist who had struck nearby three weeks earlier.
Police questioned -- and then arrested Williams, triggering a series of mistaken witness identifications that led to his unjust conviction for rape, kidnapping and aggravated sodomy.
It was 1985 and Williams was sentenced to serve 45 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. "I felt betrayed. ... I felt like these people had taken my life for something I didn't do. I felt like I was being treated unfairly. ... I felt very, very angry towards everybody," said Williams last week, a free man after nearly 22 years behind bars.
He said he spent many of those years stoking that anger by fighting guards and inmates, while his childhood friends were developing careers and raising families. Watch Williams offer more details about his prison nightmare »
Earlier this year, after DNA science proved his innocence, the 45-year-old with a graying mustache stood again before a judge -- who this time exonerated Williams. Watch Williams celebrate after a judge freed him »
Williams' troubling story provokes discomfort in a nation that prides itself on a justice system where the accused are innocent until proven guilty. So far, DNA evidence has directly exonerated 208 wrongly convicted people in the United States, according to the Innocence Project.It's unknown how many prisoners now locked up in American jails could be freed by new testing of DNA evidence.
A jury of Williams' peers convicted him in the April 5, 1985, rape, kidnapping and aggravated sodomy of a woman in Atlanta's Sandy Springs neighborhood.
The victim told police her attacker first approached her to ask if she could help him find someone named Paul. Then he produced a gun and forced her into her car, according to police. They then drove to a dead-end street where the assault occurred.
Because the science behind each person's unique DNA signature was new to police in 1985, the key evidence that sealed Williams' fate was the testimony of three eyewitnesses who mistakenly said they recognized him.
"Mistaken eyewitness identification has long been the single biggest factor in the conviction of innocents," said Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project.
"That has got to be important to everybody, because if we can reform identification procedures, it will keep more innocent people out of jail and convict criminals who really commit the crimes."
A national nonprofit group, the Innocence Project has inspired creation of state and regional organizations including the Georgia Innocence Project, which exonerated Williams.
As a new prisoner Williams said he fought a painful struggle against the raw deal the world had dealt him. When board members denied him parole the first of three times Williams said, "they had to escort me to 'the hole' [solitary confinement]."
"I couldn't function out there around the other inmates," Williams said. "I was mad, I was bitter. I felt the whole world just gave me up."
It wasn't until 1997 -- more than a decade after he was locked away -- that Williams' own voice freed him from the grip of his anger. At Valdosta State Prison, a close friend named Charlie Brown helped him join a Christian choir -- leading him to accept Jesus.
"Singing was like being out here, in a sense. It freed me from all the things, from all the fights, from the officers who were cruel, prison, stabbings," said Williams, who especially embraced the hymn "Amazing Grace."
After singing got a hold of Williams, he said the hardest part of his heart started to dissolve.
"I didn't feel angry anymore -- or any hate."
To prevent more tragedies like Williams', innocence projects in many states, including Georgia, have begun pressing lawmakers to adopt special witness ID procedures called sequential double-blind lineups. Such lineups are administrated by officials who don't know who the suspect is and present each member of a lineup one-by-one instead of simultaneously.
Witnesses who see several potential suspects simultaneously are more likely to choose a person who looks most like the perpetrator -- but who may not actually be the perpetrator, according to the Innocence Project. The group also cites research that says misidentification is reduced if the person overseeing the lineup is "blind" to which person in the lineup is the suspect.
Georgia's Legislature held hearings Monday in Atlanta to study the research and the proposed standards, which have been adopted by New Jersey and jurisdictions in Minnesota, California and elsewhere.
Louis M. Dekmar, vice chair of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies is skeptical of the research, but said the issue deserves further study.
"I don't believe the research is so compelling that we need to make swings and changes that don't bode well for criminal investigations and the criminal justice process," said Dekmar, a 30-year law enforcement veteran and chief of police for LaGrange, Georgia.
Dekmar argues investigators should be allowed to administer lineups to gauge reaction while they look at witness faces, to see if a witness is "stressed, weeping, nervous -- all those reactions that help detectives formulate whether this is a strong identification or a weak identification."
Williams was convicted on the identification of three witnesses who first singled him out from a photo lineup, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
More than 20 years later, Georgia Innocence Project attorneys arranged to compare Williams' DNA with DNA evidence collected from the 1985 rape. It was not a match, proving that Williams was not the attacker and opening the door to his release.
Shortly after Williams' exoneration, DNA science again played a role in the case when a genetic match resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of Kenneth G. Wicker for the crime that Williams had been wrongly convicted of. Years earlier Wicker had served four years in prison for another rape and two attempted sexual assaults, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
As Scheck's Innocence Project marks its 15th year, the 1995 O.J. Simpson defense attorney describes it as a movement for criminal justice as well as human rights.
"I think that it's going to be remembered for getting innocents out of jail, but also for changing the paradigm in the criminal justice system," said Scheck.
"There is a greater understanding now that sound scientific and critical research can go a long way toward proving injustice and prosecuting the guilty."
Sometimes an Innocence Project client is confirmed to be guilty by DNA evidence, but the group doesn't make the number of those cases available. Theoretically, If key DNA material in a case is properly preserved, there's no time limit on revisiting old cases, according to the Innocence Project.
Critics accuse the group of denying closure to communities and victims' families by giving new life to old cases. To that, project spokesman Eric Ferrero said, "Victims are not served by the wrong people being convicted."
Perhaps the most important victory for the project has been its role in sparing the lives of 15 people condemned to death. In 2000, 13 condemned prisoners were exonerated by a group of Northwestern University students affiliated with the Innocence Project.
Some of the innocent prisoners were freed through DNA testing, others were exonerated after new trials were ordered by appellate courts.
Those spared lives prompted then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan to declare a state moratorium on all executions and later, a blanket clemency of all 167 death row prisoners.
The moratorium remains in effect while Illinois authorities consider proposed reforms to the system.
Back in Georgia, during the ten months since Williams' friends and family welcomed him home with hugs and kisses, he's been taking his time rejoining society, attending electronics classes and dealing with his top complaint: 21st century traffic.
Williams has found a home in a church congregation and plans to join its choir, holding on to the spiritual anchor he formed in prison.
Money is tight for Williams, and, according to the Innocence Project, only 45 percent of those exonerated by DNA evidence have been financially compensated. He expects some compensation from Georgia, although the state has no law guiding such cases.
Regaining his freedom has renewed Williams' belief in the power of prayer, but he said it has done little to repair his faith in the nation's justice system. He wonders how many other Americans are still suffering injustices like his own.
"When I see someone on television when they say, 'this is a suspect,' I have a difficult time believing that that actually is a suspect," Williams said.
"That's how I'm affected now."
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**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 20858
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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| pax
Posted:
Fri Oct 26, 2007 1:49 pm |
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Great articles, great project.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16089
Location: Wish You Were Here
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| SavannahStar
Posted:
Sun Oct 28, 2007 7:19 am |
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Aren't some of the stories just amazing? I cannot in my wildest imagination begin to relate to what it must be like being locked up for years and years for a crime you did not commit. How heartbreaking! I am glad to hear he was able to let go of his anger while incarcerated, what a man he is. I feel so sad about these cases! 
God bless Barry Scheck and his team! They are warrior angels. 
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**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 20858
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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| pax
Posted:
Sun Oct 28, 2007 2:07 pm |
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| SavannahStar wrote: |
Aren't some of the stories just amazing? I cannot in my wildest imagination begin to relate to what it must be like being locked up for years and years for a crime you did not commit. How heartbreaking! I am glad to hear he was able to let go of his anger while incarcerated, what a man he is. I feel so sad about these cases!
God bless Barry Scheck and his team! They are warrior angels. |
Definitely. I'd imagine some of the exonerated had committed other crimes. That's sometimes what police and prosecutors say, 'hey, they were bad guys and should be off the streets.' Hopefully during their incarceration they got their act together and will be productive and clean.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16089
Location: Wish You Were Here
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| Seraph
Posted:
Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:59 am |
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| resigned wrote: | AHA!!........................there is a Holloway connection! I don't know what it could mean, but I just wanted to type, AHA!
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"Free the Aruba three"
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
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Location: United Kingdom
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