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Police and prejudice
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First DNA Death row Exoneration: Kirk Noble Bloodsworth DONE Figure 9: A photo of Kirk Bloodsworth who was the first person to be exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. Figure 11: An excerpt from the newspaper article about Dawn Hamilton's murder, showing a picture of her. Figure 13: A photograph of the day Kirk Bloodsworth was exonerated and released from prison on 28 June 1993. Based on information received from the Center of Wrongful Convictions (Anon., n.d.): Case Data Defendant: Kirk Nobel Bloodsworth Gender: Male Date of birth: October 31, 1960 Race: Caucasian Jurisdiction: Baltimore County, Maryland Date of crime: July 25, 1984 Age at time of crime: 23 Date of arrest: August 7, 1984 Charge: Sexual assault, rape, and first-degree premeditated murder of a child Sentence: Death (first trial), life (second trial) Release or exoneration date: June 28, 1993 Time lapse (arrest to release): 3,247 days Victim(s): Dawn Hamilton No. of victims: 1 Age(s) of murder victim(s): 9 Gender of victim(s): Female Race of victim(s): Caucasian Relationship of victim to defendant: None Defendant prior felony record: None Known factors leading to wrongful conviction: Five mistaken eyewitnesses, junk science, withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecution Did an appellate court ever affirm conviction? Yes - second conviction affirmed, Bloodsworth v. State, 76 Md. App. 23 (1988). Exonerated by: Gubernatorial pardon and DNA, which belatedly implicated the actual killer. Compensation for wrongful imprisonment: $300,000 Compensation per day of wrongful imprisonment: $92.39 A little girl, Dawn Hamilton, aged nine was sexually assaulted, strangled, and beaten to death with a rock on 25 July 1984. At the tim... ... middle of paper ... ...een convicted. Since Kirk Bloodsworth was released, he has become an activist, speaker and supporter of the Innocence Protection Act (IPA) after it was passed in February of 2000. Bloodsworth is also the Advocacy Director of Witness to Innocence which will be the subject of a documentary which is involved in the appeal to the revoking of Maryland’s death penalty. Kirk Bloodsworth’s case is a subject of the book called Bloodsworth: the True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA written by Tim Junkin. Bloodsworth is also the subject of a documentary: Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man by Gregory Bayne. This case can be seen as a perfect example of the justice system failure due to several missteps that took place during the investigation as well as the trial and the biggest being that the overlooked Kimberly Shay Ruffner as a suspect. (Hanes, 2004).
Christine Jessop was a nine year old girl who after bring dropped off by the school bus at her home in Queensville, decided to ride her bike to the park nearby to meet with her friends. After stopping to buy some gum at the local store, she was last seen walking her bike up her driveway by her friend Kim Warren. She did not keep her appointment with her friend at the park, and would never be seen alive again (Anderson & Anderson, 2009). This small town instantly became involved in the search for the missing girl, but with very little evidence to go on time passed, and hope began to diminish for the safe return home of Jessop. On New Year’s Eve 1984, eighty-nine days after Jessop went missing, her body was found badly decomposed in a bush by Fred Patterson fifty-five kilometers from Queensville. An autopsy would later revival that she was raped and mutilated (Anderson & Anderson, 2009). The police still did not have a suspect in the case nor did they have any leads, but now that her body was found the police and the small town were the topic of media, increasing pressure on the police to figure out what had happened to this little girl.
Convicted for the murders of his wife and two kids, thirty-four years ago, Dr. MacDonald still endures the agony of being accused of killing his family. Even after twenty-four years of imprisonment and several unlawful court hearings, additional documentation continues to up hold Dr. MacDonald’s testimony.
On the night of November 28th 1976, 28-year-old Randall Adams was hitchhiking on a Dallas road when 16-year-old David Harris picked him up. Harris, a runaway from Texas had stolen the car along with his father’s shotgun. They spent the day together and that night went to a drive-in movie The Swinging Chandeliers. Later that same evening officer Robert Wood was shot and killed when he pulled a car matching the exact description as Harris’s over. Two witnesses-including Harris, named Adams as the murderer. Adams received a death penalty sentence that in 1979 that later was reduced to life in prison. It was early in the 1980’s when director Errol Morris happened upon Adams’s court transcripts whilst shooting a different documentary about a Dallas psychiatrist who was frequently consulted in death row cases. Convinced of Adams innocence and the false accusations made against him Morris began making a film on the subject.
As we learned this week, DNA databases are used by various governmental agencies for several different purposes. We all have seen new magazine shows such as, 20/20 or Dateline, that show the collection of DNA samples from suspects in a case that is compared to those collected at the scene of the crime. But what happens when the sample is an incomplete match, compromised, or contaminated? The answer is the wrongful conviction of innocent citizens. The case that I have decided to highlight, is the wrongful conviction of Herman Atkins. In 1986, Atkins was convicted of two counts of forcible rape, two counts of oral copulation, and robbery in the state of California. It was alleged that Herman entered a shoe store, and raped, beat, and robbed a
2 (A). After spending three decades behind bars, DNA evidence proved Cornelius Dupree’s innocence. Dupree was arrested and eventually wrongfully convicted for the robbery of a woman and a man. He was indicted on both the robbery and rape of the woman, but since prosecuting him for the rape would not extend his 75 year sentenced handed down for the robbery, the rape charges were dismissed. DNA testing was not available at the time to exonerate him for the crimes. Even though he was not convicted for the rape, the evidence clearing him of rape, stood for the robbery too, as they were both connected.
This case started on July 25, 1984, with the death of a nine year old girl by the name of Dawn Hamilton. The story plays out as follows: Dawn approached two boys and an adult male that were fishing at a pond in a wooded area near Golden Ring Mall in eastern Baltimore, Maryland. Dawn asked the boys to help her find her cousin, they declined the adult male however agreed to help her look. This was the last time anyone saw Hamilton alive. Hamilton’s body was found to have been raped, strangled and beaten with a rock. The police collected a boot print at the scene and DNA that was found in Hamilton’s underwear. The police also relied on the witness testimonies and line-ups, which in this case was the photo array. With the five eye witness testimonies and a tip the believed to be suspect was found. Kirk Noble Bloodsworth a prior U.S. Marine with no prior criminal record was taken into custody and charged with intentional first degree murder, sexual assault and rape. Bloodsworth was basically convicted on the eye witness testimonies. The state requested the death penalty. Bloodsworth was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. (BLOODSWORTH v. STATE, 1988)
In today's society no crime is a perfect crime, with the use of DNA testing and modern advancements in health and forensics even the smallest piece of someone's genome can be cultured and used to identify even the most devious of criminals. The use of DNA testing was able to help change the life of Gene Bibbins for the better and further proved how DNA testing is able to be used to help clarify who the culprit actually is. Gene Bibbins life was forever changed the night that he was unjustifiably arrested for aggravated rape which resulted in his being sentenced to life in prison, only for his case to eventually be reevaluated sixteen years after his conviction, leading to his exoneration.
The Web. 28 Feb 2014 Christopher, Liam. “Mother ‘vindicated’ after girl’s murder suspect held.” Daily Post. 18 Aug. 2006: 19:. Proquest Newsstand.
Another factor associated with wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification. The Innocence Project identifies eyewitness misidentification as the single most important factor leading to wrongful convictions. Eyewitness misidentification is often an error due to witnesses being under high pressure, witnesses focusing on the weapon more than the offender, and police procedures when receiving an identification statement from a victim. A study
Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.
The case of Ray Krone, an Arizona man convicted of murder on bite mark evidence left on a woman's breast. DNA evidence later implicated another man and Krone was released from prison
... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited "The Innocence Project - Cameron Todd Willingham: Wrongfully Convicted and Executed in Texas. " The Innocence Project - Cameron Todd Willingham: Wrongfully Convicted and Executed in Texas.
The justice system depends on eyewitness evidence to convict offenders. Eyewitness is a difficult task to achieve in the justice system. According to Wise, Dauphinais, & Safer (2007), in 2002 one million offenders were convicted as felons in America. Out of those one million offenders, 5000 of them were innocent in 2002 (Dauphinais, 2007). The Ohio Criminal Justice survey states that 1 out of 200 felony criminal cases is a wrongful conviction (Dauphinais et al., 2007). According to Dauphinais et al., (2007), Dripps said that eyewitness error is a huge factor in cases of wrong convictions. A study conducted in 1987 indicated that in roughly 80,000 criminal cases, eyewitness error was the only sole evidence against the defendant
Allen, Amanda. .The Death Penalty. 20 April 1999. Justice For All. 19 April 2001. www.prodeathpenalty.com.
Singer, Julie A. "The Impact Of Dna And Other Technology On The Criminal Justice System: Improvements And Complications."Albany Law Journal Of Science & Technology 17.(2007): 87. LexisNexis Academic: Law Reviews. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.