On March 8, 1985, former Marine Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted of and sentenced to death for sexual assault, rape and the first-degree murder of a 9-year-old girl.
After spending close to nine years in prison, with two of those years on death row, DNA tests revealed that he was innocent.
“I spent eight years, 11 months and 19 days in prison for something I never did,” he explains.
Kirk Bloodsworth is the first death row inmate to be exonerated by DNA testing. On March 31 at 7:30 p.m., Bloodsworth will give a lecture in the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing auditorium.
In his lecture, the former death row inmate will tell his story and discuss issues surrounding the wrongfully accused.
“I believe the system is broken and without criminal justice reform, we would wrongfully accuse people,” Bloodsworth says.
In 1993, Bloodsworth was found innocent after his DNA was tested against the evidence in the murder he was accused of. He was released after spending close to a decade in prison for a crime he never committed.
“Too many people are incarcerated based on circumstantial evidence or faulty eye witness identification,” says Richard Mangan, a professor in criminology and criminal justice who helped to coordinate the lecture and bring it to the school. “We need to mobilize public support to exonerate incarcerated people who have been unjustly convicted and rely more on DNA evidence to ensure that the problem does not continue.”
It wasn’t until September 5, 2003, that police found a DNA match to the murderer of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton, the girl Bloodsworth had been accused of killing.
However, the real murderer had already been imprisoned since one month after the murder. He had been charged with burglary, attempt to rape and intent to murder — and held in a cell one floor below Bloodsworth.
For the first time at FAU, Bloodsworth will speak about his experience on death row.
“You can’t turn the clock back. I was sentenced to die. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else,” he says.
This presentation is free to students and faculty. A $15 donation that will go toward sponsoring similar events is requested from non-FAU students.
Bloodsworth is now the program officer for The Justice Project Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform, which works to fight injustice within the judicial system. He works as a national spokesperson educating society about wrongful convictions.
For more information on Kirk Bloodsworth and the Justice Project, visit www.thejusticeproject.org.
If you go …
When: March 31 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing auditorium
