This week, with the signature of Governor Martin O’Malley, Maryland became the 18th state to abolish the death penalty.
Kirk Bloodsworth watched as the Governor signed the repeal, the culmination of a years-long advocacy campaign. In 1984, a Maryland jury convicted Bloodsworth of the sexual assault and murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton, a violent crime Kirk did not commit. As Bloodsworth explains, he spent “eight years, ten months and nineteen days” in prison, and two of those years on death row until he was finally exonerated on DNA evidence. Today, Bloodsworth serves as the advocacy director for Witness to Innocence. He tells his story and his hopes for the future of the criminal justice system.