The Innocence Project

The Innocence Project

The Innocence Project is a foundation that was created in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld in order to exonerate innocent prisoners through DNA testing. To date, over 300 United States prisoners have been liberated from federal confinement. The Innocence Project is doing an amazing deed for all of the men and women who have had their lives robbed from them, due to faulty systems. 

One of the 300 prisoners that were exonerated was named Kirk Bloodsworth. He was convicted in March of 1985 for the brutal killing and sexual assault of a nine year old girl. She had been strangled, raped, and beaten with a rock at the time of her death. When the police received an anonymous call saying they had seen Bloodsworth at the scene, and a police sketch fit his description, he was automatically a suspect for the murder. Things continued to go downhill for Bloodsworth when, during trail, all five witnesses at the crime testified that they had seen him with the victim. Also presented during the testimony was that Bloodsworth had told his wife earlier that day that, "he had done something terrible that would affect their marriage". Even though he had people who testified against him, Kirk could easily have not been convicted, had the criminal justice system looked deeper into all of the evidence presented. For example, there was a shoe print found near the victim, but there were not any similar identifying features of the print that correlated. Also, the failure of the use of a Rape Kit, as well as not testing the DNA that could have been found on the blood surrounding the crime scene. 

In 1992 the prosecution agreed to DNA testing to be performed. The victim’s shorts and underwear, a stick found at the scene, and an autopsy slide were compared against the blood standards of the victim and Bloodsworth. .Bloodsworth was released from prison in June 1993 and pardoned in December 1993. He had spent over eight years in prison, two of those years facing execution.

After reading this specific case, it horrified me how unfair Kirk Bloodworths prosecution was. He was forced to spend eight years rotting behind bars, and waiting for his death penalty to be carried out. It is awful that innocence people, like Bloodsworth, are forced to spend time in jail, because the judicial systems don't carry out their job accordingly. And on the other end of the scale, when false prosecutions occur, it means that a criminal is walking on the streets, not paying for the act they committed, and have the potential to engage in more illegal behavior.