Innocent man shares his 20-year struggle behind bars

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. Willie “Pete” Williams, 45, spent half of his life behind bars for a 1985 rape he did not commit. 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.

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.”

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.”