Bloodsworth

by Tim Junkin

  Kirk felt a tug and realized he was being helped up and then pulled out by the guards. He was dizzy and nearly fell. The guards had him by his elbows and led him back towards the holding cell. Everything was a blur. He heard only confused shouting. The door to the courtroom closed behind him and the noise muted. The guards opened the door to the holding cell and he went inside. Kirk looked for the black man. No one was there. The cell was empty. The lunch bag was gone. Sick as he felt, Kirk turned and asked the guard where the other prisoner was. “What other prisoner?” the guard said to him, looking hard at Kirk. “You crazy, man? There’s been no one in here all day except you.”

  Later Kirk became convinced that he’d been visited by an angel. Whether he’d conjured him up, a hallucination, a figment of his tormented mind, or whether the man was real, he could never say. But he believed that at his lowest moment, paralyzed with fear and dread, he’d been visited. More than an apparition. There were forces still on his side, he was sure. Reasons to fight on.

  EIGHTEEN

  UNDER MARYLAND’S DEATH penalty law, as it existed in 1985, a defendant convicted of a capital offense had the right to choose whether to be sentenced by the jury or by the judge. For an innocent man, a real Hobson’s choice.

  Kirk had put his faith in the jury and they had crushed it. He’d detected no pity in the eyes of any of them when the verdict was announced. Whether Judge Hinkel would be merciful, he didn’t know. He hoped Hinkel, with his years of experience, might have seen more clearly what the jurors had not. Kirk thought it might be harder for one person to sentence him to death than for a group of twelve to do so. But Judge Hinkel was pure hardtack. Kirk agonized over which way to go. He listened to the pros and cons of each choice, as laid out by his lawyer. But he had lost faith in his lawyer. Thinking about the decision made Kirk sick. He decided to put his life in the hands of the judge. The sentencing was set for March 22.

  After Kirk made his selection and the jury was dismissed from further service, Anthony Pipitone, a reporter for the Evening Sun, interviewed six of the jurors, and wrote a story headlined BLOODSWORTH JURY CONVINCED OF GUILT FROM THE START. According to what they told the reporter, when the deliberations started, only one of the twelve jurors had any doubts about Kirk’s guilt. After a relatively quick review of the state’s identification witnesses, the one holdout came around and they reached a unanimous decision.

  The jurors uniformly found the state’s identification witnesses to be credible. They also thought the testimony of the alibi witnesses seemed rehearsed. The similarities between the shoes recovered from Dawn Gerald’s row house and the herringbone-patterned marks on Dawn Hamilton’s neck and back also convinced them. A bailiff had brought into the jury room the exhibits admitted into evidence. These included the color photographs of Dawn, the tennis shoes, and the exhibit of side-by-side pictures prepared by the FBI shoe expert. The jurors thought that the markings on Dawn’s body matched the pattern of the shoe soles. One juror, who wore a 10½ size shoe, tried on the sneakers. His big toe protruded from a hole in the canvas, but he could wear them without much problem. The jurors also found incriminating the statements made by Bloodsworth in Cambridge. One juror termed Bloodsworth’s taco salad explanation to be “ridiculous.” When these were added to the rest of the state’s evidence, it all made for an overwhelming case.

  The jury had chosen as their foreman an eighty-seven-year-old man. While exclaiming to the reporter how convincing the evidence was, in the same breath he expressed relief that the jury wouldn’t have to decide Bloodsworth’s sentence. “I’m glad we don’t have to make that decision,” he said. “One decision was enough for me.” He then made a curious and seemingly contradictory admission. “The whole thing was based on very weak evidence,” he said. “That’s one reason I’m glad the judge took it out of our hands.” At least one other juror also indicated that she probably would not have voted for death.

  Kirk’s fate, though, was no longer in the hands of the jury. It rested with Judge William Hinkel.

  Curtis Bloodsworth, meanwhile, had contacted Ronald Raubaugh, one of the investigators used by Kirk’s first lawyer, Russell White. Raubaugh was an experienced ex-detective. Curtis used the little money left from his loan to rehire Raubaugh. He wanted him to find a reason for a new trial, he told him. Curtis was racked with hurt and guilt.

  As required by Maryland law, a presentence report had to be prepared, evaluating all of the criteria to be taken into consideration by the court before sentencing. These criteria included a description of the offense, the prior record of the defendant, his family and marital history, his educational background and employment history, a list of his financial assets, and a statement by the defendant. The report concluded with a final evaluation. The quality or strength of the evidence against the person convicted was not one of the criteria to be considered. A verdict of guilty is like a positive test for pregnancy. Under the eyes of the law, you either are or you aren’t.

  The presentence investigation was conducted by Nancy Huber, a senior investigator with the state’s department of parole and probation. Her report was sent to the lawyers and the judge. Regarding the section titled “Statement of Defendant,” she wrote as follows:

  The defendant states he did not commit the above offense. He claims he was not in the area at the time the offense allegedly took place. He advises he was home at the time. He feels he was “railroaded” and feels the state did not prove their [sic] case beyond a reasonable doubt. He relates the state’s case was based on emotion and publicity. He stresses that two wrongs do not make a right and that the senseless murder of Dawn Hamilton was bad enough and now an innocent man’s life is in jeopardy which doesn’t help the victim in the least. He calls his guilty finding “a great miscarriage of justice.” He claims what bothers him most is that the person who actually committed the offense is still out there. He indicates he will not rest until justice is done and he is vindicated. He emphasizes he has no criminal record and is incapable of hurting anyone, especially a child. He feels this case has been a great defamation of character to him and his family.

  Kirk’s assets in the report were listed as “None.”

  In her final evaluation, Ms. Huber ended with the following conclusion:

  The defendant is charged with the most heinous of all crimes, the rape and murder of a child. He expressed no remorse or responsibility for that offense. There was nothing concrete found in his background to explain his participation in such an offense and one can only speculate as to what led the defendant to commit such a crime.

  The prosecutors, as they were required to do, notified Scheinin that they intended to bring to the sentencing one of the FBI profilers who prepared the psychological portrait of Dawn Hamilton’s killer. They wanted the judge to hear about the profile, particularly that the FBI concluded that this killer would strike again. Scheinin, through an intermediary, had the report sent to John R. Lion, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland, for review. Dr. Lion wrote a letter criticizing the profile. He called it a “descriptive work” that “resembles the typical mentation of a detective trying to solve a crime.” He called the report “dangerous guesswork.” He wrote that “there is no scientific literature showing this profile, or anything like it, to have any predictive utility in the determination of clinical or forensic dangerousness.” He wrote that because the report had come from the FBI, it had been “endowed with a false sense of prestige.”

  While Sheinin prepared for the sentencing, Ronald Raubaugh was out running down possible new leads. Sifting through old police reports, he came across references about Richard Gray, written by Detective Mark Bacon. Through a source in the police department, he got hold of a confidential report written by Bacon. While Sheinin knew that Richard Gray had found Dawn’s clothes, and knew that he’d had some panties in his car, the report contained a great deal of additional information suggesting that Bacon thought Gray might have committed the murder. Scheinin, when
he learned of it, was furious that this information had been withheld from him. He believed he’d been entitled to it under the Brady rule. If he had been able to show the jury that there was another suspect and that the police had failed to fully investigate this suspect, he might have created a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. Scheinin filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that the prosecutors committed misconduct in failing to disclose this exculpatory information. The state filed an opposition. Judge Hinkel set a hearing date on the motion for March 18, a week before the scheduled sentencing.

  Scheinin had sent three subpoenas to the Baltimore County Police Department for Detective Bacon, but they all went unserved. Scheinin was told only that Bacon was out on sick leave. The police would not even provide a forwarding address. Raubaugh, though, tracked Bacon down. Bacon was awaiting final confirmation of his award of state retirement benefits. He was reluctant to testify in a way that undercut the state’s case until his benefits were finalized. Raubaugh served him with a subpoena anyway, requiring him to attend the hearing.

  In court Bacon, who had been out on sick leave since the prior October, had no choice but to testify. Under questioning from Scheinin, he described his investigation into Gray and his suspicions. He reviewed the information he’d accumulated: what he believed was a blood spot on Gray’s shirt, how Gray had been nervous and vomited, Gray’s clean hands when supposedly he’d been rolling newspapers, the fact of finding a pair of child’s panties in his car, panties that Gray claimed he’d found in the woods. His superiors had quashed his investigation, Detective Bacon told Judge Hinkel. They’d given him no adequate explanation. Scheinin argued vociferously that he’d never been informed of this information and that it was clearly exculpatory.

  Robert Lazzaro responded that first of all, the report had not even been provided to him. His office had turned over boxes of police reports to the defense. They’d turned over everything they had, he said. If it had been retained by the police department, he hadn’t been aware of it. Moreover, it was all inconsequential, a nonissue. Gray did not resemble the composite. He had passed important portions of a polygraph test, Lazzaro reported, information contrary to what Bacon had heard and incomplete at best. Lazarro also explained that homicide detectives had ruled out Richard Gray as a suspect because he’d been at the Fullerton police station when the missing child report came in.

  Judge Hinkel denied the motion for a new trial. None of the information, he ruled, tended to either clear Bloodsworth or sufficiently implicate Richard Gray.

  ON MARCH 22, 1985, Kirk was brought from the detention center to Judge Hinkel’s courtroom to be sentenced. He had never been so scared. Once again, the courtroom was filled. Curtis had come, but Kirk’s mother couldn’t bear to watch. She had stayed home. Wanda and Birdie were there. Thomas Hamilton and many of the state’s witnesses had come. Robert Lazzaro, relying heavily on the psychological profile, told Judge Hinkel that the killing was an act of opportunity, the result of frustration and bottled-up rage that finally boiled over. Bloodsworth had been dominated by women all his life, Lazzaro argued, by his mother, his wife, and his mother-in-law, and he had repressed his anger until the day he lured Dawn into the woods and killed her—a symbol of all females. He then blocked this terrible act from his mind. “If he started out with this crime, where will he go from here?” Lazzaro said. “There is no worse offense that can be imagined. Dawn Hamilton never had a prayer.” The state, Lazzaro concluded, demanded the most extreme of all punishments. The state demanded that Kirk Bloodsworth be executed.

  Scheinin argued that the death penalty was not the appropriate sentence. Bloodsworth had an unblemished record, he pointed out. He had no history of violence. He had served his country honorably in the Marine Corps. He was a loving son and husband and didn’t deserve to die. With a client who continued to protest his innocence, there wasn’t much else to say.

  Kirk Bloodsworth, standing beside Steven Scheinin, had the opportunity to speak last. He rose and tried to hold his head high. His legs trembled. He told Judge Hinkel once again that he did not commit the crime. He tried to speak loudly, for the whole courtroom to hear, but his voice cracked. “This has been a tragedy of misjustice all the way around,” he said. “I’m supposed to come up here and tell you why you shouldn’t sentence me to death. These circumstances are not fair because I, Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, did not commit the crime!”

  Judge Hinkel took a recess to consider his decision. He had the discretion to go either way. He recalled later, after Bloodsworth had been cleared, that it was perhaps the most difficult decision he’d ever made as a judge.

  William Hinkel was a graduate of both the University of Baltimore and the University of Baltimore Law School. He’d worked as an insurance claims adjuster for a while, gone into private practice, and then become involved in local politics. In 1966 he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates where he served one term. During his tenure, the legislature was debating a bill concerning the death penalty. Hinkel’s colleague, Thomas Hunter Lowe, who later became a Maryland appellate judge, was initially a proponent of a death penalty statute. Hinkel was undecided, torn. Hinkel had amassed a large amount of literature on the death penalty: studies on whether it was a deterrent, whether it was beneficial to the community, statistics on economic considerations. He shared all of this with his friend, Lowe. Ironically, Lowe did an about-face. He voted against the death penalty law. Hinkel voted in favor of it.

  Governor Marvin Mandel appointed Bill Hinkel to be a district court judge in 1971. Governor Harry Hughes elevated him to the circuit court in 1981. In Baltimore County, judges with sufficient experience received capital cases on a rotation basis. It was the luck of the draw that he got Bloodsworth. And vice versa.

  After the verdict, Judge Hinkel reviewed the evidence. He thought the boys’ identifications were credible. He thought the statements of Donna Hollywood, Bloodsworth’s employer from Harbor to Harbor, that Kirk had claimed he was sick and needed his paycheck, and had then left town abruptly a week after the murder, were incriminating. The things Bloodsworth said in Cambridge disturbed him. The explanation that Bloodsworth gave as to why he told people he’d done a bad thing, the taco salad bit, he found hollow. It didn’t ring true. The alibi witnesses as a group were unimpressive. Taken in total, he agreed with the jury that the evidence proved Bloodsworth was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

  A judge comes to a case knowing little more about it than the jury. Judge Hinkel was not privy to all that was uncovered during the massive police investigation that went on, the many leads, the various witnesses offering diverse descriptions of the suspect. He had no way of knowing much about Bloodsworth the man. He only knew what was brought out during the trial.

  Back in his chambers, he wrestled over his decision. Even though he’d voted in the legislature for the death penalty, he’d never before been in a position to impose it. He was surprised Bloodsworth had chosen the judge rather than the jury to pass sentence. Hinkel actually had come to believe over time that the death penalty should be eliminated. Not so much because he felt sorry for defendants. More that he’d come to believe that as a result of the postconviction delays always associated with a death sentence, it created a prolonged and unnecessary period of uncertainty and sometimes agony for the family members of the victim. While he did not relish having to sentence anyone to death, he couldn’t ignore the terrible details of this crime. The legislature had seen fit to pass a death penalty law. If a death sentence was not required for the rape, mutilation, and murder of a nine-year-old girl, it shouldn’t be imposed on anyone. Judge Hinkel wasn’t one to flinch from what he considered to be his judicial duty. He went over the various criteria required to be considered before passing sentence in a capital case. Then he returned to the bench. “Will the defendant please rise,” he said.

  Kirk and Steven Scheinin both stood. Kirk Bloodsworth would not flinch this time either. He assumed a military bearing, his head held high. This time I wo
n’t buckle, he promised himself.

  “This case involves probably the most terrible of all crimes—murder, rape, and sodomy,” Hinkel began. “And it was committed upon the most helpless of all citizens, a trusting little girl. The torture she endured and the horror that was visited upon her is beyond my words to describe.” He paused, looking at the defendant. “Therefore, I sentence you to death.”

  This time there was no outburst in the courtroom. Not a word was spoken. The mood was somber. In the hallway outside, Curtis Bloodsworth wept and fumbled through pictures of Kirk’s growing up. Through his sobs he said to reporters, “I can feel for the parents of the lost child . . . But to be taking another innocent life . . . This is two crimes . . .”

  A warrant of execution was signed by Judge Hinkel on March 28, 1985. Since Kirk was entitled to an automatic appeal to Maryland’s highest court, the sentence was stayed pending its outcome.

  PART V

  THE DEATH HOUSE

  Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be compared.

  —ALBERT CAMUS

  NINETEEN

  THE DAY AFTER HIS sentencing, Kirk Bloodsworth was transported from the county jail to the Department of Corrections Orientation Center in downtown Baltimore. There was a protocol to be followed for inmates heading for death row. Death row inmates were special. Particularly in preparing for the long road to execution, the state had its rituals.

  At orientation, Kirk received a physical exam, a venereal disease check, had his teeth looked at, and was placed in solitary confinement on suicide watch. For five days he sat in a dark cell, alone, with nothing to do but dwell on his own agony, on his future as a hated man, a man marked for killing.