BLOODSWORTH

CHARGED WITH THE RAPE AND MURDER of a nineyearold girl in 1984 Kirk Bloodsworth was tried convicted and sentenced to die in Maryland’s gas chamber Maintaining his innocence he read everything on criminal law available in the prison library and persuaded a new lawyer to petition for the theninnovative DNA testing After nine years in one of the harshest prisons in America Kirk Bloodsworth became the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence He was pardoned by the governor of Maryland and has gone on to become a tireless spokesman against capital punishment Bloodsworth’s story speaks for 159 others who were wrongly convicted and have since been released and for the thousands still in prison waiting for DNA testing