A one-letter change in Virginia’s writ of actual innocence law five years ago that was dismissed by some as inconsequential may have made a big change in the life of a Chesapeake man exonerated last week of a 1977 rape.

Pushed by MAIP Executive Director, Shawn Armbrust, and backed by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia General Assembly substituted “would” for “could,” after Thomas Haynesworth was exonerated in 2011 by the narrowest of margins in the Virginia Court of Appeals.

Roy Watford III’s exoneration proves once again Martin Luther King, Jr’s immortal words, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”