Bloodsworth

by Tim Junkin

  Over the months and years following his release, Kirk felt as if he were riding a roller coaster. At times a speed trip was all he wanted, a manic headlong rip into alcohol, partying, girls, a desperate flail to make up for lost time, a lost life. At other moments, he found himself engaged in a private, quiet, and somber search for peace, for recovery, for a way to heal.

  He found that he couldn’t stand being in any kind of small enclosure. He’d get claustrophobic, dizzy, and sick to his stomach. Everywhere he went he needed someone with him. He was terrified to be alone. He needed at all times to have a credible alibi witness at his side, someone able to confirm his whereabouts twenty-four hours a day.

  Kirk had walked out of prison directly into the spotlight of a national death penalty debate. A lightning rod, a face to put on a harrowing story of injustice, he went from no one listening or believing a word he had to say, to everyone clamoring to hear his story. His very first week back in Cambridge, he spoke to the kids at his church school about his experience. He found it calming and strangely satisfying. A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on innocence and the death penalty, chaired by Representative Don Edwards from California, invited him to testify. Kirk asked Bob Morin if he’d go with him. Morin helped Kirk write his speech. There he was, this Eastern Shore crabber, now speaking in the halls of Congress. Kirk followed the script Morin had prepared for him and told his story. During the committee hearing Representative Charles Canady, a Florida Republican, made a remark suggesting that the system must only balance the risk of executing an innocent man against the danger of letting a convicted killer go free on a technicality. Kirk couldn’t restrain himself. He jumped to his feet. His face was red, angry. “Well, that’s no consolation for me or you if it was your son sitting on death row,” he shouted out.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to offend you,” Canady said, taken aback.

  “Well, you already did, sir,” Kirk replied.

  Kirk Bloodsworth would be no shrinking violet when it came to speaking out about the death penalty.

  In those first months Kirk and Bob appeared on numerous television talk shows together, shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Connie Chung, and Larry King. They appeared before Congress, and Kirk addressed several state legislatures. Kirk made a compelling presence. His story was real and true. There was no denying the torture he endured. But fame can be short lived.

  Bob Morin, meanwhile, pursued a compensation package from the state for Kirk. A Maryland statute provided the mechanism for compensation but first required that the inmate be pardoned on the basis that he was innocent of the crime for which he’d been convicted. If this occurred, then an amount could be paid, though how much was left entirely to the discretion of state officials.

  The pardon itself was no easy accomplishment. Morin had to make a written request to Governor William Donald Schaefer. He then had to engage in an extensive lobbying campaign. Schaefer wanted to have his staff read from the trial transcripts. He wanted to hear from the state’s attorney’s office. The press, though, kept Bloodsworth’s story alive. Public sentiment was in Kirk’s favor. The process took six months to resolve. In late December 1993 Governor Schaefer issued a full and complete pardon, reflecting the State of Maryland’s recognition that Kirk Bloodsworth was innocent of the crime for which he had been convicted. Only after it was granted could Morin begin negotiations for a monetary award for Kirk.

  The state started off with a low figure. Morin countered. At one point Morin tried to arrange a side benefit for Kirk, that he be hired as a park ranger. Kirk decided he could never work for the same state that had tried to kill him. State officials raised their offer to $300,000, roughly $30,000 a year for each of the years Kirk had been incarcerated, they reasoned, typical of a waterman’s income. Morin thought it was paltry. The state comptroller asked Baltimore County to kick in another $50,000 to make it $350,000. Baltimore County refused. It had done nothing wrong, it contended.

  The state had reached its choke point, Morin was told. State officials claimed they wouldn’t go higher. Morin remained dissatisfied with the amount. He didn’t think it was nearly enough. But there was no precedent for challenging it in court. Morin and his partners had previously agreed that they would take no fee from Kirk for any of their work. And though they had been reimbursed for their expenses and some of their time by the public defender, Morin had been lending Kirk money for living expenses during the nine months since he’d been out, money that Kirk wanted to pay back. Not only was Kirk in debt to Morin and others, but his father had spent close to $100,000 over the years in trying to help Kirk and also was broke and desperately in need of a financial boost. Kirk wanted to pay off his debts and reimburse his father; he wanted to buy a car, to begin living again. He decided to accept the offer.

  The money went fast. Kirk paid his father back. He repaid the Cambridge bank for what Curtis still owed. He returned to Morin what he’d borrowed from his firm. He paid Wanda Bloodsworth $5,000 to divorce her. He leased himself a new Corvette, his first new car. He threw a huge party at the Suicide Bridge Restaurant to celebrate his one-year anniversary of freedom. He found a new girlfriend, and when her brother got into some drug trouble Kirk paid for him to go through rehab. The relationship didn’t last, but for a short while he was riding high. He took a vacation in Jamaica and blew ten grand in a week. And then one day he found himself broke again. He wrote a check and it bounced. The money was all spent. The finance company repossessed his ‘vette. He needed a job. Reality was a cold slap.

  Many of the people in Cambridge continued to shun Kirk. To them DNA was a technicality, just another legal quickstep that had sprung Kirk when he still should have been locked up. Mothers in the grocery store would steer their children clear of his path. A lady on the sidewalk crossed to other side of the street when she saw him coming. Other notes appeared anonymously on his windshield.

  Brenda Ewell was one woman from Cambridge who felt differently. She and Kirk met at an American Legion dance in 1996. Brenda was shy and quiet but a good listener. She knew Kirk’s story and never doubted the truth. His courage and character impressed her. She was a steady girl. She worked at a local restaurant. She had a country wisdom about her, a kindness and grace that Kirk responded to. They started dating. Kirk would come by the restaurant and she’d feed him. Over time Brenda helped open up a heart that had been badly damaged and sealed shut.

  Brenda’s nephew, Jay Jones, had his own workboat and offered Kirk a job tonging oysters that next winter. The weather was miserable. It was the toughest winter Kirk ever remembered. He was on the river every morning before sunup, in the sleet and icy water, the stinging wind, but he worked through it, even enjoyed it. He kept on with Jay into the summer, trotlining for crabs. Kirk got a second job working in a machine shop. He began saving money toward buying his own boat.

  On June 26, 1999, Brenda and Kirk married at the Open Bible Church.

  In early 2000 Kirk put a down payment on an old, beat-up, wooden, crab-scraping dead-rise with no motor. He took a small loan out from the bank, bought a wrecked ‘87 Chevy Blazer, took the engine out, and had himself his first workboat. He chinked and painted her. When he put her in the water she leaked pretty badly, but he managed. He named her Jeanette’s Pearl, for his mother. She was a dream come true. “A man on the water can have a beer, even a cigar,” he remarked. “No one’s there to tell you what to do. The air is clean and open. It’s just a wonderful feeling . . .”

  It was around that same time that Senator Patrick Leahy called Kirk on the phone. Leahy was holding hearings on the Innocence Protection Act, a bill that would mandate testing of DNA for a wide variety of inmates who seek it, and asked if Kirk would appear and speak. Kirk hadn’t spoken in public in a while, and Bob Morin was no longer available to accompany him. Morin had been appointed to be a Washington, D.C., Superior Court judge in 1996. Bob and Kirk talked and Bob encouraged him to go. Kirk agreed he’d appear on his own.

  On February 11, 2000, Kirk
traveled to Washington, D.C., and met with Senator Leahy. Flanked by the senator and Brenda, he strode into the Dirksen Senate Office Building to tell his story before an array of national legislators, dignitaries, and international media. The conference chamber was packed, reminding Kirk of being in the courtroom years before. But this time the people had come to listen to what he had to say. And his voice was clear and strong. During the statement he’d prepared, he referenced the fact that some writers in the press had pointed to his exoneration as an example that the system worked. As Kirk told his story, he answered this suggestion:

  Did the system work? I was not released because the system was interested in what happened to me, but because my lawyer was interested. . . . I was lucky to have a lawyer who cared about my case, who worked hard for me, although I was not paying him anything. I was lucky that a laboratory found a semen spot that no one had seen before. If I didn’t have Bob Morin as my attorney, and if the DNA had not been found, I would still be sitting in a jail cell. Still telling everybody that would listen that I was an innocent man. . . .

  Did the system work? I was released, but only after eight years, eleven months, and nineteen days, all that time not knowing whether I would be executed or whether I would spend the rest of my life in prison. My life had been taken from me and destroyed. I was separated from my family and branded the worst thing possible—a child killer. I cannot put into words what it is like to live under these circumstances. . . .

  Did the system work? My family lived through this nightmare with me. My father spent his entire retirement savings. As a result, he cannot retire and must work on and on. My mother, whom I loved and stood up for me—stood right beside me the entire time—died before I was released. Died of a broken heart. I was not allowed to go to her funeral. . . .

  When I hear people say that the system works, that the system is fine, that we need to speed up executions, I say bull. You see these people who say such things were not there with me during those nine years. These people think they are talking about some hypothetical person. But they’re not. They are talking about me. . . . And if it can happen to me, it can happen to you. It can happen to your child, your son, your daughter—it can happen to anybody.

  Kirk’s testimony was so moving that CNN invited him to be on television the next day. Shortly thereafter, Kirk got a call from Wayne Smith, executive director of the Justice Project, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization advocating for criminal justice reform. Smith offered to hire Kirk as a consultant, with a yearly stipend, if Kirk would assist in strategic planning, attend speaking engagements, and let the world know more about his experience. Kirk signed on.

  The Justice Project soon realized that they had a powerful voice in Kirk Bloodsworth. Audiences were transfixed by his story. Kirk had a presence, a passion, an eccentric and country way with language that painted a spellbinding picture to drive home the horror of what had been done to him. His experience endowed his words with a moral authority. He began appearing at universities, law schools, before state legislatures all over the country, before Congress time and again, with the Innocence Project in Chicago, with Hurricane Carter’s Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted, with Stephen Bright’s Southern Center for Human Rights. Kirk spoke out eloquently and articulately against the death penalty. His words carried the weight of experience and truth. People listened. He rang the bell for a more humane way to treat prisoners. John Rago, law dean at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, called Bloodsworth an “American hero.” Kirk Bloodsworth wasn’t the first inmate to make use of DNA. But he was the first to do it who’d been on death row. Other death row inmates, following in his footsteps, obtained exoneration through genetic testing. More than a few. A subtle shift in the national death penalty debate began to take place. Undoubtedly he helped stir a change in the wind.

  Kirk has kept it up. Since 2000, he has continued to speak all over the country. He’s been invited to appear abroad. Proposed bipartisan federal legislation, providing funds for the DNA testing of inmates, has been named after him. He has turned his life into a positive and powerful force for justice. He has become a national symbol and voice for reform.

  ACCORDING TO INFORMATION maintained by Amnesty International, the United States is one of only a handful of industrialized countries that continues to execute its prisoners. Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, South Africa, and many others have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Many additional countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes.

  In April 1999 the United Nations Human Rights Commission passed the Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium on Executions, calling on countries that have not abolished the death penalty to at least restrict its use. Just ten countries, including Rwanda, Pakistan, Sudan, China, and the United States, voted against this resolution.

  In the United States today thirty-eight states and the federal government continue to carry laws permitting capital punishment. Approximately thirty-five hundred people sit on death row.

  In Maryland, 75 percent of the inmates awaiting execution in recent decades have come from Baltimore County. As governor of Texas, George W. Bush oversaw the executions of 152 people. Clemency was granted in one instance.

  In early April of 2002 an Arizona death row inmate, Ray Krone, after spending ten years awaiting execution, was cleared through the use of DNA and walked into the sunlight a free man. Anti–death penalty advocates heralded Krone as the one hundredth death row inmate proven to be innocent since 1973. Numerous people on death row have been cleared through the use of DNA testing since Kirk Bloodsworth paved the way.

  In 1992, the year before Kirk Bloodsworth was freed, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld started the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York. Since its inception, spearheading the use of DNA testing for inmates, it has proven that over 140 people convicted of serious felonies were actually innocent. Today hundreds of other inmates across the country are asking to be subjected to a DNA test. Conservative lawmakers, however, resist the widespread use of DNA testing for convicted felons, claiming that it is too expensive and burdensome to preserve the evidence and pay the costs of the tests, that it promotes frivolous delays and allows inmates to “play” or “game” the system, and that it undermines the important concept of “finality.”

  When Kirk Bloodsworth appeared before Congress on behalf of the Innocent Protection Act, he argued that innocent people deserved to be protected. “I don’t ever want this to happen to anybody else,” he said simply.

  The Justice Project doesn’t take a position on whether capital punishment is right or wrong. It seeks to educate and to advocate for fairer processes in the criminal system. Peter Loge, previously the director of the Justice Project, suggests that in just the last few years the death penalty debate has taken on a new dimension. For two centuries the arguments centered mostly around questions of the morality of execution, questions of whether capital punishment is an effective deterrent, and questions as to whether capital sentencing was applied in a racially fair way. Recently, Loge suggests, a significant question has arisen as to whether the convictions that underlie capital cases are trustworthy. He believes Kirk Bloodsworth has put an important face on this new parallel debate. Will our society tolerate the executions of people whose underlying convictions may be suspect?

  THIRTY

  THOUGH HE ADORED her from day one, Jeanette’s Pearl had been giving Kirk a fit on the water. While he continued to mend her, chink her, patch her, and fix her engine, she remained an obstinate and recalcitrant boat. When he wasn’t traveling and speaking, Kirk had been trying to trotline regularly on Slaughter Creek off the Little Choptank River. But he could barely afford to keep her afloat. She was costing him more than he was making.

  For a while Kirk had been eyeing a replacement, a thirty-five-foot beauty with an Evans fiberglass h
ull, a deep scag, and a Caterpillar diesel. She was a lot of money. He talked it over with Brenda. He had a steady paycheck from his speaking engagements. In early 2003 he decided to go for it. He bought her and spent the winter months readying her up for the season. For the first time in his life, Kirk Bloodsworth had the real thing, a first-class dead-rise fiberglass workboat. He painted her and polished her. When he first saw her, he knew the name he’d paint on her stern. He christened her Freedom.

  The year 2003 started well for Kirk and Brenda and then got better. From the day Kirk walked out of prison, he’d been asking who the real murderer of Dawn Hamilton was. Since 1993 he’d called the state’s attorney’s office repeatedly, and since no one would take his calls he’d leave a message asking them to seek a match of the DNA sample with the other suspects. He called Judge Smith, who’d been elected as the Baltimore County executive, and left messages requesting that the DNA be put into the national database of criminal suspects called CODIS—Combined DNA Index System—to seek a match.

  Kirk had become friends with Barry Scheck at the Innocence Project in New York, and Scheck had made several calls to Ann Brobst requesting that the DNA be put into CODIS. On one occasion Brobst told Scheck that her office and the police had limited funds, had other priorities. She told him that her office was still not convinced that Bloodsworth was innocent. She suggested that maybe the panties were tainted, that the sperm came from somewhere else. In late 2002 Scheck wrote a letter to Brobst demanding that the DNA found on Dawn’s panties be run through the CODIS but got no response. Kirk called other times and left messages. Since 1993 the state’s attorney’s office had known Kirk was not the killer. For ten years it sat idly by while a child murderer might be stalking other kids, might be released any day into the community after doing time on some other charge. Why wasn’t a DNA match being vigorously pursued?