[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 130 (Monday, September 22, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11751-S11752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MR. KIRK BLOODSWORTH
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a man, Kirk
Noble Bloodsworth, who was the victim of a grossly imperfect system. I
first met Kirk Bloodsworth in 2000 when he came to me as a man who had
been exonerated after almost 9 years of wrongful imprisonment. I am
proud to say that we have become close friends and partners in the
fight to reform capital punishment in America.
For 8 years, 11 months and 19 days, Kirk Bloodsworth served time in
prison as an innocent man. And for the next 10 years, Mr. Bloodsworth
lived in a jail without bars. He lived in a world where people
questioned his innocence, where rumors followed him everywhere he went,
and where he was unable to find stable employment.
On July 25, 1984, 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton was brutally raped and
murdered. Fifteen days later, Kirk Bloodsworth was arrested based on
the testimony of several witnesses who said they had seen him near the
spot where they found Miss Hamilton. There was no physical evidence
linking Mr. Bloodsworth to the crime.
In March, 1985, Mr. Bloodsworth, a former Marine with no criminal
background, was convicted and sentenced to death in Maryland. He was 24
years old. Subsequently, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned Mr.
Bloodsworth's conviction. However, a second jury trial found him
guilty, and sentenced him to two consecutive life terms. In 1992, at
the request of Mr. Bloodsworth and his attorney, the evidence from his
trial--Miss Hamilton's shirt and underpants--was tested for DNA. By
June 1993, two DNA fingerprinting tests--one conducted by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and one conducted by Forensic Science
Associates concluded that Mr. Bloodsworth's DNA was not the same as DNA
found on Miss Hamilton's underpants.
On June 28, 1993, Mr. Bloodsworth was released from prison; in
December, 1993, Maryland Governor William Schaefer pardoned him; and in
June, 1994, the State of Maryland awarded him $300,000 in compensation.
The wheels of justice broke down in this case, but we cannot pretend
that what happened to Kirk Bloodsworth was an exceptional occurrence.
Mr. Bloodsworth's nightmare of wrongful conviction has been repeated
again and again across the country. To date, 111 individuals convicted
and sentenced to death have been released from death row with evidence
of their innocence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Today Mr. Bloodsworth is outspoken about the importance of making
post-conviction DNA testing available to defendants with a credible
claim of innocence, something I have fought hard to accomplish as part
of the Innocence Protection Act. People of good conscience can and will
disagree on the morality of the death penalty. But we can all agree
that a system that sentences innocent persons to death has no place in
a civilized society, much less in 21st century America.
While DNA testing freed Mr. Bloodsworth from prison in 1993, the test
results did not convince everyone that Kirk Bloodsworth was not guilty.
Prosecutors refused to lift the veil of suspicion over him, in effect
saying that the DNA tests might be sufficient to undermine his
conviction, but not to prove his innocence. Mr. Bloodsworth told the
Baltimore Sun that he spent years asking the county to run the DNA
found on Dawn Hamilton's clothing through the State DNA database.
Finally, last week, the State ran the DNA evidence through its database
and the black cloud that had followed Mr. Bloodsworth for 10 years was
lifted.
On September 5, 2003, Mr. Bloodsworth was told that the State tests
implicated Mr. Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a convicted sex offender, as the
rapist and murderer of Dawn Hamilton. Mr. Ruffner has now been charged
with first-degree murder. The prosecutor who previously refused to
acknowledge Mr. Bloodsworth's innocence went to his home to apologize
to him.
I know that I am joined by many others when I say that I am delighted
that Mr. Bloodsworth can finally feel truly free. His fight to prove
his own innocence has been won. I am certain that he will continue with
his efforts to fix the broken machinery of capital punishment in
America and especially to assist others who experienced wrongful
conviction.
I ask unanimous consent that a Baltimore Sun article detailing the
recent events in Mr. Bloodsworth's case be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Baltimore Sun, Sept. 6, 2003]
DNA That Freed Man Leads to New Suspect; Killing: Kirk Bloodsworth,
Convicted and Then Cleared in the Rape-Murder of a Child, Learns a Man
he Knew in Prison is Charged With the Crimes
(By Stephanie Hanes)
The same DNA evidence that freed Kirk Bloodsworth from
prison 10 years ago has now implicated another man in the
1984 rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton of Rosedale,
quashing any lingering questions about Bloodsworth's
involvement in the crime.
Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a 45-year-old convicted sex offender
who went to prison for an attempted rape and attempted murder
in Fells Point only weeks after Dawn Hamilton was killed, was
charged yesterday with first-degree murder.
The Baltimore County state's attorney's office--which has
never publicly acknowledged Bloodsworth's innocence--
announced the development, and a prosecutor apologized to
Bloodsworth in person.
``Even though I was cleared, there were so many people who
didn't believe me,'' said Bloodsworth, 42, who was reached at
his home in Cambridge. ``This is the proof everyone needs.''
Ruffner is still in prison for the Fells Point attack, with
a release date of 2020. Baltimore County State's Attorney
Sandra A. O'Connor said prosecutors will seek the death
penalty in Dawn's killing.
``This was a horrendous rape-murder of a 9-year-old girl,''
O'Connor said. ``Whether or not he is incarcerated, he will
be held accountable.''
While Bloodsworth's supporters said they were delighted
with the outcome, they criticized Baltimore County law
enforcement officials for not testing the DNA earlier.
In June, The Sun wrote that the DNA in Bloodsworth's case
had not been compared to the state's DNA database of
convicted felons. As a convicted sex offender, Ruffner's DNA
would have been in the state's database as early as 1994.
Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said the
comparison was made last month.
``I can't tell you how pleased I am for Kirk,but what
happened here today should have happened earlier,'' said
Barry C. Scheck, the co-founder of the New York-based
Innocence Project, which tries to free the wrongly
convicted.
[[Page S11752]]
delay in testing
Scheck, who helped exonerate Bloodsworth, said he has been
asking for this sort of testing for years. It was after
Scheck's most recent letter to the Baltimore County State's
Attorney's Office that police and prosecutors started moving
toward testing the DNA against the database, The Sun reported
in June.
Yesterday morning, Assistant State's Attorney S. Ann
Brobst, who prosecuted Bloodsworth and who had been
criticized by his supporters for refusing to admit his
innocence, went to Bloodsworth's home to tell him the news.
``She apologized up and down,'' Bloodsworth said yesterday.
``She had to eat a lot of crow to come. You've got to give
her something for it.''
O'Connor said Dawn's father, Thomas Hamilton, was also told
of the new arrest. He was unavailable for comment.
death row, then life
Bloodsworth was convicted of Dawn's murder in 1985 and sent
to death row. Multiple witnesses had testified that they saw
him near the crime scene.
The next year, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned his
conviction. But when Bloodsworth was retried, he was again
found guilty and this time sentenced to life in prison.
In 1992, prosecutors agreed to run DNA tests on a semen
stain found on Dawn's underwear--a stain that law enforcement
officials said they had not noticed earlier. Those tests
showed that Bloodsworth was not the person who had sexually
assaulted the little girl.
Prosecutors agreed to release Bloodsworth immediately but
would not apologize or say he was innocent.
``I believe that he is not guilty,'' O'Connor said at the
time. ``I'm not prepared to say he's innocent. Only the
people who were there know what happened.''
Lingering doubts
Bloodsworth was pardoned by former Gov. William Donald
Schaefer and given $300,000 from the state. But life after
prison was a struggle, one that he now talks about openly.
At first, he had trouble holding jobs and grappled with
freedom after nine years behind bars. He heard the derogatory
whispers and saw the dirty looks. He once wiped the scrawled
words ``Child Killer'' off his car.
``He has confided to me many, many times that people echo
what Ann Brobst kept saying: (The DNA) doesn't mean he's
innocent,'' Scheck said.
In recent years, Bloodsworth married and started working as
a consultant for the Justice Project, a Washington advocacy
group for justice reform. He has testified for lawmakers and
spoken in classrooms across the country about the importance
of DNA evidence.
In his own case, he said he has pushed for years for county
law enforcement to run the preserved DNA evidence through the
state's database.
A month after Dawn Hamilton was killed, Kimberly Ruffner
was arrested for the Fells Point attack.
He had broken into a woman's house Aug. 28, 1984, and had
tried to rape her, police said. When she struggled, he tried
to kill her with a pair of scissors. The woman managed to
escape, and police found Ruffner hours later.
He was tried and convicted of breaking and entering,
assault with intent to murder and attempted rape, said Mark
Vernarelli, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public
Safety and Correctional Services. He was sentenced to 45
years in prison.
According to court records, Ruffner had been charged with
two other sex offenses in 1983.
In the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup, Ruffner
slept on the tier below Bloodsworth in the same building.
The two men lifted weights together, and Bloodsworth, who
worked in the prison library, would give him books,
Bloodsworth said. They both had red hair. But Bloodsworth
said they were nothing more than acquaintances.
Not once, Bloodsworth said, did Ruffner indicate that he
was responsible for Dawn's murder.
``It's spooky,'' Bloodsworth said. ``The whole time he was
there. I just can't get over it.''
case timeline
July 1984--The body of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton is found in
a wooded area near the Fontana Village apartments in
Rosedale, Baltimore County.
August 1984--Police arrest and charge Kirk Noble
Bloodsworth, a former waterman from Cambridge, in Dawn
Hamilton's death.
Also, Kimberly Shay Ruffner is arrested on charges of
breaking and entering, assault with intent to murder and
attempted rape after attacking a Fells Point woman with a
pair of scissors.
March 1985--A jury convicts Bloodsworth of Dawn Hamilton's
murder. Baltimore County Judge J. William Hinkel sentences
Bloodsworth to death.
July 185--Ruffner is convicted on charges in the Fells
Point attack and is sentenced to 45 years in prison.
July 1986--The Maryland Court of Appeals overturns
Bloodsworth's conviction, saying prosecutors withheld
evidence about another suspect.
April 1987--A second jury convicts Bloodsworth of murder.
He is sentenced to two consecutive life terms--one for sexual
assault and the other for murder.
April 1992--At the request of Bloodsworth's attorney,
Baltimore County prosecutors agree to release evidence from
Bloodsworth's trial--panties, a shirt and a stick--for DNA
testing.
May 1993--A California DNA lab reports that a semen stain
on the victim's panties cannot have come from Bloodsworth.
June 25, 1993--The FBI, conducting its own test, agrees the
semen found on the panties could not have come from
Bloodsworth.
June 28, 1993--Bloodsworth walks out of the House of
Correction in Jessup, a free man.
December 1993--Gov. William Donald Schaefer pardons
Bloodsworth.
June 22, 1994--Bloodsworth is awarded $300,000 by the state
of Maryland for nine years of wrongful imprisonment.
Sept. 5, 2003--Baltimore County Assistant State's Attorney
S. Ann Brobst, who prosecuted Bloodsworth, visits him at his
Cambridge home and tells him further DNA tests matched the
semen found in Dawn Hamilton's panties to Ruffner, a Maryland
prison inmate.
She also apologizes.
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