Bloodsworth: The True Story of One Man's Triumph Over Injustice

This is an eye opening true story about the issues of wrongful convictions, and the flaws in our criminal justice system that lead to such convictions. I had the pleasure of meeting Kirk. His story is both heartwrenching and compelling. I applaud his ongoing efforts, through this book and his many other personal efforts to right the wrongs in our system of justice. The Maryland legislature this year revised its death penalty law as a result of Kirk's horrible experience.

This book has enough emotion in it to supply a host of other books. This true crime story will show you what the human being is capable of (both bad and good) in the name of Kirk Bloodsworth. He was convicted twice for the same crime and in the end it was proved without any doubt that he was innocent. He was on death row for many years and you learn all about a convict's life in prison. There were only two people responsible for him being released and that was himself with incredible persistance over years and an attorney later on who finally believed him. Hundreds of death row inmates have been released due to DNA proof, but Kirk was the first. A gripping story that makes you turn the pages.

Over the past decade we have had to face the sad conclusion that our criminal justice system has something badly wrong with it. Convictions based on eyewitness identifications and physical evidence persuasive enough to convince a jury have later been shown by DNA testing to be completely erroneous. DNA testing is taken for granted now although there is still reluctance on the part of some prosecutors to allow tests to be made on old specimens, and many of the specimens have been discarded down the years. The story of one of the first of these cases is told in _Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA_ (Algonquin Books) by Tim Junkin. It is a hellish story of justice gone wrong, and there is plenty of blame to go around; but it is also the story of Kirk Bloodsworth's undying confidence that his conviction would be set right, and the idealistic lawyers who listened to him and eventually made it so. In 1984, nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton was raped, sodomized, and killed in a wooded area near Baltimore. A composite sketch was produced on the evidence of seven- and ten-year-old boys, and the sketch eventually was connected, despite dissimiliarities, to Kirk Bloodsworth, an ex-Marine. Much of the book shows how the righteous confidence of detectives and prosecutors lead them to rationalize away any parts of the evidence and identifications that did not fit. Bloodsworth was eventually put on a disgusting death row, and as an accused and then convicted child molester and killer, he was detested by the thugs in prison who assaulted him in different, disgusting ways. He did not give up; he wrote letters every day to anyone he could think of who might help, and eventually found a lawyer who had power to get the evidence reexamined. Bloodsworth was freed, and the prosecutors, because he pushed for the tests, now had a DNA sample to match, but they did almost nothing to pursue the real killer until Bloodsworth insisted on action. The DNA sample revealed the real killer, a man who had been able during the time Bloodsworth was in jail to commit further crimes. There is a powerful chapter near the end in which Bloodsworth confronts a prosecutor after the killer had been found; she requested the meeting to tell him. He tells her, "I have hated you for twenty years. You have called me a monster..." He extends forgiveness, which is significant, but he has also been inspired to try to make changes in the system that nearly killed him. He is, of course, against the death penalty, and is campaigning against the conservative lawmakers who insist that the widespread use of DNA testing is too expensive and causes frivolous delays in sentencing. He has appeared before Congress on behalf of the Innocent Protection Act, which eventually made money available to provide funds for DNA testing, a program called the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program. Junkin is a lawyer and a novelist, and has told the

A frightening true story of an innocent man. Kirk's drive to prove his innocense saved his life (nearly 10 years later). A shameful display of our justice system at work. It's time for all of us to wake us and realize what's going on in "the system." This is a must read!

In spite of all he has been through, Kirk Bloodsworth is a lucky man. Wrongly convicted of a brutal crime, Bloodsworth spent nine years in prison. He is a member of a growing club of men and women, 115 at the time of this book's publication, who were sentenced to death before eventually being exonerated and cleared. The growing rolls of innocent people, exonerated and freed, is now causing reassement of how our criminal justice system works. During an attack in the prison, his name - Kirk Noble Bloodsworth - played a role in saving him. Today, his name is known because he was the first person to spend time on death row whose exoneration came about because of DNA evidence. This book is a roller coaster ride, and the drama doesn't let up until the very last page. In spite of his exoneration, Bloodsworth's prosecutor continued to state her belief that he was guilty. Ten years after his exoneration and release, another sample of evidence was finally tested and matched to the real murderer. Only then did Kirk Bloodsworth receive an apology from the prosecutor. Bloodsworth now speaks on behalf of The Justice Project, and advocates passage of federal legislation, the Innocence Protection Act. Author Tim Junkin and Bloodsworth are currently involved in a wide-ranging book tour and you may get the opportunity to hear Kirk Bloodsworth in person.