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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ward, Nathan
Format: Recurso educativo Open Access
Language:en
Published: 2004
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ704244
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Table of Contents:
  • A Waterman's Journey: Tim Junkin's Bloodsworth Ward, Nathan Crime Death Genetics Correctional Institutions Books Before he was wrongly sent to death row for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth enjoyed the life of a Chesapeake Bay waterman. Convicted largely on the testimony of a seven- and a ten-year-old eyewitness, by 1989 Johnson had exhausted almost every legal option available--after winning a new trial, he was convicted a second time. Then he read the book that ultimately saved his life, Joseph Wambaugh's The Blooding, about the pioneering work being done in England with so-called genetic fingerprinting. Bloodsworth excitedly notified his lawyer, Bob Morin, and the two began a legal odyssey that, incredibly, would end with Bloodsworth's being freed based on DNA incomparability, a type of evidence unavailable to him when he was first sentenced. This article is a brief summary of the Kirk Bloodsworth story and how DNA testing made him a free man.