United States ยท Maryland, Baltimore County
Kirk Bloodsworth: wrongly convicted, exonerated
Convicted of First degree murder, first degree rape and first degree sexual offense of a nine year old girl.
Convicted8 March 1985
SentenceDeath (1985), then life imprisonment after a 1987 retrial
Years in prison8
Exonerated28 June 1993
How the conviction was overturnedDNA evidence, Baltimore County Circuit Court, followed by a pardon from Governor William Donald Schaefer on 22 December 19931,2
What went wrong
- Mistaken witness identification
- Official misconduct, including prosecution failure to disclose a police report pointing to another suspect
From conviction to exoneration
- Arrested after a witness identification.1
- Convicted at his first trial and sentenced to death on 22 March 1985.1,2
- The Maryland Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial.1,2
- Convicted again at retrial and sentenced to life imprisonment.1,2
- PCR DNA testing excluded him as the source of the biological evidence.1,2
- Released from prison, the first US death row prisoner cleared by DNA according to the Innocence Project.1,2
- Granted a full pardon based on innocence by Governor William Donald Schaefer.1,2
- Another man, identified through a 2003 DNA database match, pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life.1
Compensation
300,000 US dollars from Maryland for lost income, 421,237 US dollars in 2021 under the Walter Lomax Act and 83,000 US dollars in 2022 for housing, according to the Innocence Project and the National Registry of Exonerations
Today
Exonerated and pardoned, free since June 1993.
Sources
- Innocence Project, Kirk Bloodsworth
- National Registry of Exonerations, Kirk Bloodsworth (28 April 2022)