Statement by
Kirk Bloodsworth
March 21, 2005
“My name is Kirk Bloodsworth. In 1993, my capital conviction was the first in the United States to be overturned by DNA evidence. In 1984, I was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton in Baltimore, Maryland. I spent eight years, 11 months and 19 days behind bars before DNA testing proved my innocence.
“In that time, my life had been taken from me and destroyed. The Catholic Church provided me with essential support in my time of need, and I converted to Catholicism in 1989, while I was serving time behind bars. I am a deeply spiritual person and continue to embrace the Church. Its values help to guide me as I travel across the country to tell my story.
“My family lived through the nightmare of my wrongful conviction with me. My father spent his entire life savings and lost our family home on my case. My mother, who always supported me and believed in my innocence, died five months before my release. She never heard the results of the DNA test.
“It took another 10 years after my release in 1993 to clear my name and truly convince people of my innocence. In September 2003, the prosecutor who persuaded two juries in Maryland to sentence me to death almost 20 years ago, told me that the DNA testing that exonerated me in 1993 had finally – after years of my urging – been run through the state’s database and matched the DNA of another man. Last May – May 2004 – that person pled guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
“I was a former marine with no criminal record, who was nowhere near the scene of the crime, but I was still convicted and sentenced to death for a crime I didn’t commit. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody. And it does. Since 1973, more than 100 people have been exonerated from death row after being cleared of their charges. More than 150 people have been wrongfully convicted and later freed from prison based on DNA evidence.
“Every bit of my story exemplifies the problems in the death penalty system. The same systemic flaws that led to my wrongful conviction, such as mistaken identification, inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, and basic human error, plague the cases of innocent people in prison and on death row.
“Today’s survey results show Catholics’ growing concern about our capital punishment system and the potential for the ultimate injustice—the execution of an innocent person. I hope that stories of wrongful convictions, like mine, open up people’s eyes to the importance of making a criminal justice system that is fair and protects the innocent.”
To arrange an interview with Kirk Bloodsworth, please contact Cynthia Thomet, (202) 557-7519.
Kirk Bloodsworth is a Program Officer of The Justice Project (TJP). TJP, a 501(c)(4) organization, works together with The Justice Project Education Fund, a 501 (c)(3) organization, to address unfairness and inaccuracy in the American criminal justice system.