Kirk Bloodsworth, Death Row DNA Exoneree
In 1985, Kirk Noble Bloodsworth was sentenced to die in a Maryland penitentiary for the brutal rape and murder of 9 year old Dawn Hamilton. A crime he did not commit.
He had witnesses who could place him at home at the time of the murder, and there was no physical evidence that linked Kirk to the crime scene. Despite all of this, Kirk was ultimately convicted by his slim resemblance to a composite drawing based on the eyewitness testimony of the two young boys, and the eyewitness identification of 3 others, one of which identified Kirk after seeing him on the news. Arrested within 3 weeks of the murder Kirk maintained his innocence from day one, assuming that somehow, some way, the police would realize they had the wrong man and the nightmare would end.
Sadly it did not. In March of 1985, Kirk Bloodsworth was put on death row in the Maryland State Penitentiary. Branded a monster, he began his 9-year battle to prove his innocence from the confines of a 6×9 cell.
Kirk finally won his freedom in 1993. Thanks to what was then a new technology called “genetic fingerprinting,” Kirk Bloodsworth became the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA.
Since his exoneration in 1993, Kirk has found his voice, making it his life’s mission to foster change in the criminal justice system, especially regarding issues surrounding wrongful convictions and the death penalty. He has become a vocal opponent of the death penalty, speaking publicly to small groups and large audiences, lobbying politicians, and working with other activists to rehabilitate the penal system. The pinnacle of this work to date came in 2004 when President George W. Bush signed into law the Kirk Noble Bloodsworth Post Conviction DNA Testing Program which provides block grants to States to pay for inmate post-conviction DNA testing.
- KBOO