After serving nine years in prison and being placed on death row for a crime he did not commit, Kirk Bloodsworth was exonerated in 1993. In 1984, due to faulty eyewitness identification, Bloodsworth was convicted in the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl near Baltimore. Although his criminal record was clean, Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death. Even though DNA science was not of public knowledge in the early 1990s, Bloodsworth learned about it while on death row, and with help from his attorney and supporters had testing performed on evidence in his case. DNA testing proved his innocence and matched the DNA of the perpetrator, Kimberly Shay Ruffner.
Since his exoneration in 1993, Bloodsworth has tirelessly campaigned against capital punishment and has become a leading advocate for Witness to Innocence, a group of exonerated death-row inmates who speak out against the consequences of wrongful convictions and capital punishment. Bloodsworth was a leader in the movement to abolish the death penalty in Maryland, the very state that wrongfully convicted him and placed him on death row 20 years ago. On May 2nd, Maryland officially abolished the death penalty.
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