Thirty-five years innocent

A man convicted of a 1982 rape in Louisiana’s capital city walked free yesterday after 35 years in prison, following his exoneration using an updated fingerprint database. The Innocence Project, which works to free wrongly convicted defendants, said Archie Williams, pictured, was freed after his conviction was vacated by a Louisiana district court commissioner in Baton Rouge. The organisation said it had been working to free Williams since 1995. The group said he was prosecuted and convicted despite having an alibi, and based largely on an uncertain identification by the victim, from a photo lineup. Prosecutors long opposed Williams’ efforts to have fingerprint evidence checked against a national database. However, a search last month led to a match of fingerprints found at the scene of the 1982 rape and stabbing in Baton Rouge to another man – a confessed serial rapist who died in prison in 1996, according to the Innocence Project.