Kirk Noble Bloodsworth CaseKirk Bloodsworth was the first death row inmate in American to

be exonerated by DNAevidence. He spent 2 years on Maryland's death row for a crime he did not
commit before beingexonerated.FACTS: On 25 July 1984 in Rosedale, Maryland, 9-year-old Dawn
Hamilton was playing withher cousin, Lisa. Dawn was spending the summer with her father, who had to
work that day, soDawn was being looked after by her aunt. Dawn was looking for Lisa behind the
apartmentwhere she was staying with her father. After stopping to watch two boys fish at the lake
behindthe apartment, Dawn was approached by a young man who told her that he would help her
lookfor Lisa. The two boys watched Dawn and the stranger enter the woods next to the lake.
WhenDawn had not returned home three hours later, her friends and relatives launched search.
Theolice soon discovered her body in the woods where she had last been seen alive. She hadbeen
abducted, strangled, sexually molested and beaten to death with a rock.The two boys who had last
seen Dawn were taken to the police station where they werequestioned and helped produce a
composite of the stranger who had taken Dawn into thewoods. Several people who were in the area
of the lake that morning provided descriptions ofthe stranger seen with Dawn and their descriptions
generally agreed that the culprit was morethan six feet tall, thin and had curly blond hair. The composite
was publicized and, eventually,someone came forward and suggested that the composite
looked like a local man, KirkBloodsworth. Bloodsworth was a former marine and discus champion
with no criminal recordwho had followed his father’s profession as a waterman on the eastern shore of
Maryland. Atthe timeof Dawn's murder, Bloodsworth had just moved back to the Chesapeake Bay area
ofMaryland from Baltimore and resumed his work as a commercial fisherman.Bloodsworth insisted on
his innocence throughout his arrest and trial, asserting that no physicalevidence linked him to the
killing. Baltimore County Judge J. William Hinkel sentencedBloodsworth to death. The Court
of Appeal of Maryland ordered the conviction of KirkBloodsworth for first degree murder, first
degree rape and first degree sexual offence to bereversed and for Bloodsworth to be remanded for a
new trial.On 8 July 1988, the Court of Special Appeals in Maryland heard Bloodsworth's appeal
againsthis conviction arising out of his second trial for first degree murder and first degree rape forwhich
he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. n 11 July 1988 the appeal court deniedBloodsworth's
appeal and his convictions were upheld. He continued to serve his consecutivelife sentencesISSUES:
Whether or Not Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is justified in using DNA to protect
hisinnocence?HELD: With the support of the Innocence Project (a not-for-profit legal clinic formed to
promotethe use of DNA analysis to exonerate innocent prisoners) and Centurion Ministries
(aninvestigative agency based in Princeton, New Jersey, which is committed to helping those whohave
been unjustly convicted), Morin persuaded officials to agree to the testing of biologicalmaterial
preserved from the crime with the then-emerging DNA technology known as PCR(Polymerase chain
reaction). The stain had been tested in the 1980s by the FBI without successand no biological evidence
had been presented at trial. Bloodsworth and Morin were initiallyinformed that the evidence had
subsequently been destroyed. However, after persistentenquiries, the evidence turned upin a
paper bag in the judge’s chambers.Morin then sent the evidence to Edward T. Blake of Forensic Science
Associates ("FSA") inCalifornia. Tests were carried out on the victim's shorts and underwear, a stick
found at thescene and an autopsy slide. The results were compared against the blood standards of
thevictim and Bloodsworth. A year later, in April 1993, FSA determined that the amount
ofspermatozoa on the slide was insufficient for testing but tests on the victim's underwear
(whichcontained a semen stain smaller than the size of a dime) excluded Bloodsworth.
Replicatetesting was the carried out by the FBI in order to confirm the results of the independent
FSAtesting. The FBI'stests also showed that the DNA was not Bloodsworth's and the
statedismissed the charges