Keynote Speaker
Topic:
Exoneration by DNA
Date/Time:
Friday, August 7, 2009; 10:45-11:35am
CE Hours:
1
Click here
for course description
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In June of
1993, Kirk Bloodsworth’s case became the first capital
conviction in the United States to be overturned as a result
of
DNA
testing. On July 25, 1984, a nine-year-old girl was found dead
in a wooded area. She had been beaten with a rock, sexually
assaulted, and strangled. An honorably discharged former
Marine and Maryland resident, Bloodsworth was convicted of
sexual assault, rape, and first-degree premeditated murder. He
was convicted and sentenced to death on March 8, 1985. The
ruling was appealed a year later on the grounds that evidence
was withheld at trial, and Bloodsworth received a new trial.
He was found guilty again and sentenced to two consecutive
life terms.
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After years of
fighting for a DNA test, evidence from the crime scene was sent to a
lab for testing. Final reports from state and federal labs concluded
that Bloodsworth’s DNA did not match any of the evidence received
for testing. On
June 28, 1993, a Baltimore
County circuit judge ordered Bloodsworth released from prison due to the
results of his
DNA test, and in December 1993, Maryland’s governor
pardoned Bloodsworth.
By the time of his
release, Bloodsworth served almost nine years in prison, including
two on death row for a crime he did not commit.
On September 5,
2003, almost a decade later, Bloodsworth heard the news he had been
waiting to hear for 20 years: the state of Maryland finally charged
someone with the rape and murder of young Dawn Hamilton after
matching DNA evidence with information from state and federal
databases. The evidence matched the DNA of a man named Kimberly Shay
Ruffner, who had been arrested on charges of robbery and attempted
rape and murder a few weeks after Bloodsworth’s arrest in 1984. He
pled guilty on May 20, 2004 to the murder for which Bloodsworth had
been wrongfully convicted.
Course Description -
Exoneration by DNA
