The Topeka Capital-Journal reports, "Exonerated by DNA, advocate seeks demise of capital punishment." It's written by Tim Carpenter.
Maryland fisherman Kirk Bloods-worth's journey from death row to freedom is raw material for a cinematic thriller.
"From the moment I was arrested until the moment I was released, I told anyone and everyone I was an innocent man," he said.
The big screen adaptation would begin with his arrest in the middle of the night for the ghastly rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton near Baltimore in 1984. He hadn’t previously been in trouble with the law, but detectives ignored a tantalizing suspect, and the jury rejected trial witnesses who testified Bloodsworth was at home during the slaying.
The sharp clack of a judge's gavel would mark imposition of the harshest of punishment — a trip to the gas chamber.
"The courtroom erupted in applause," Bloodsworth said. "My mother cried. My father tried to object. He was led from the courtroom. I was just mad."
"Exonerated death row survivor fights capital punishment in Kansas," is the Lawrence Journal-World coverage by Ian Cummings.
Kirk Bloodsworth wants the death penalty abolished in Kansas. And in every other state, and in every nation across the world. He’s absolute on that point, and many feel he has a right to be that way.
The death penalty almost killed Bloodsworth in 1985, when he was convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. The former Marine was exonerated by DNA testing in 1993, and travels the country as the advocacy director for Witness to Innocence, an organization of exonerated death row survivors. Bloodsworth visited Kansas for the first time Monday, at the invitation of Kansas University student groups, and told his story at the Kansas Memorial Union. It’s a frightening story, and Bloodsworth hopes that the more people hear it, the more will agree with him that the death penalty isn’t safe to use.
Some Kansas lawmakers and judges already agree with him, and a bill to abolish the death penalty is awaiting action in the Legislature.
Earlier coverage from Kansas begins at the link.
Comments