PENALTY

WITHOUT DNA EVIDENCE,
I’D STILL BE BEHIND BARS
Kirk Noble Bloodsworth 1
I am the first person in the United States to be exonerated from a
capital conviction through DNA testing. When I was exonerated in
1993, I had spent 8 years, 11 months, and 19 days (including two years
on death row) for a crime I did not commit. I am living proof that
America’s system of capital punishment is broken beyond repair.
In early 1984, before my life changed forever, I was just a humble
waterman living in Cambridge, Maryland. I was barely 23 years old,
newly married, and had just served four years in the US Marine
Corps. I had never been arrested in my life. This all changed on
August 9, 1984, when the police knocked on my door at 3 o’clock
in the morning and arrested me for the murder of Dawn Hamilton.
In a matter of days, I became the most hated man in Maryland.
How was I, a former US Marine with no criminal record and no
connection to the scene of the crime, convicted and sentenced to
death for a murder I didn’t commit?
On July 25, 1984, 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton was tragically raped
and murdered in Baltimore County. She was playing outside with a
friend in the morning when she came across two little boys fishing
at a pond. A man nearby approached Dawn and offered to help
her find her friend in their game of hide-and-seek. That was the
last time Dawn was seen alive. Her body was found in the park
that afternoon, and the evidence of the brutal crime horrified the
officials at the scene.
Because of the notoriety of the crime, the police were understandably
eager to find Dawn’s killer and ease the community’s fear. When the
police department found the two little boys who had seen the suspect,
the officers drafted a composite sketch of the man they were looking for.
1 Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, victim of wrongful conviction.
The witnesses described the suspect as 6 feet 5 inches tall, with a slim
build and dirty blond hair.
At the time of the investigation, I was 6 feet tall, with a thick waist,
fiery red hair and long, noticeable sideburns.
Despite the fact that I did not fit the description, an anonymous
caller suggested my name to the Cambridge Police Department. In
a poorly conducted police line-up, I was identified as the last man to
be seen with the victim.
Eyewitness misidentification is widely recognized as a leading cause
of wrongful convictions in the United States. Since 1989, DNA evidence
has been used to exonerate over 200 individuals, and about 75
per cent of these cases involved inaccurate eyewitness identification.
Other faulty police procedures played a role in my wrongful conviction.
I went to the police station voluntarily. Knowing that I was innocent
of this crime, I wanted to be as cooperative as possible. When I
entered the interview room, a pair of girl’s panties and a rock were
lying on the table. I was never told why. I later found out that the
items were part of an experiment that the police devised because they
believed that the killer would have a strong reaction to these items
related to the crime. I had no reaction. But after I left the station, I
talked to my friends about what the police had done. During the
trial, the police used these statements against me, claiming that I knew
something that only the killer would know. I only knew because they
had shown the items to me that day.
There was no physical evidence against me. I was convicted primarily
on the testimony of five eyewitnesses who were later shown to
be terribly mistaken. With all the fear and anger in the community
surrounding Dawn’s murder, it took the jury less than three hours to
convict. I was sentenced to die in Maryland’s gas chamber. When my
death sentence was announced, the courtroom erupted in applause.
I, an innocent man, was sent to one of the worst prisons in the United
States at the time, the Maryland State Penitentiary. There was not a
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