Justice Department Holding DNA Testing Program Hostage

The day President Bush signed the Innocence Protection Act into law was one of the proudest days of my life. The law, part of the Justice for All Act of 2004, included a new program named after me: the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program.

The program provides federal grants to states to conduct DNA testing that can exonerate the innocent and help identify the truly guilty. At the time, the program's creation seemed a fitting end to a terrible chapter in my life, my 20-year struggle to prove my innocence after being convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton, a 9-year-old girl I had never met.

Given my life experience, however, I should have known that the struggle for justice never ends. Without adequate funding and the proper implementation, a law on the books is just words on paper, even if the words come from Congress. And that's how this administration and its Department of Justice are treating the Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA program.

To date, Congress has appropriated nearly $14 million for the Bloodsworth program. Yet the DoJ has yet to approve a single grant application or send the first dollar to states requesting the funding.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Today I'll be at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Justice Department officials will try to explain away their failure to carry out this critical program. Based on the history of the IPA, however, it's clear that DoJ's failure is no accident. The department has been against this program from the beginning. They opposed it when the House passed the legislation by the resounding vote of 393 to 14. They opposed it when it passed the Senate. And they opposed it when it was signed into law.

Unable to stop the law from being enacted, DoJ is now holding the program's funding hostage and denying people with claims of innocence the chance to prove it.

It's simply inexcusable.

Post-conviction DNA testing is a powerful means for ensuring public safety. It has not only led to the exoneration of over 200 wrongfully convicted individuals, it has also confirmed many a suspect's guilt. When states are denied funding for post-conviction DNA testing, they are being denied the truth.

My life is proof of the injustice that can happen when our criminal justice system makes mistakes and the power of DNA testing to enable those mistakes to be corrected. After my arrest and conviction in 1984, I waited 8 years, 11 months and 19 days in prison, including two years on Maryland's death row, before DNA testing proved my innocence. Then I waited another 10 years for the prosecution to run the DNA profile of the perpetrator in state and federal databases to find out that the real rapist and murderer was a man on my cell block who was in prison for another assault.

Quite simply, had it not been for DNA testing, I would have died an innocent man in prison.

Mistakes in the criminal justice system are not new. The organization I work for, The Justice Project, has been studying the leading factors of wrongful convictions and advocating for meaningful reform to prevent further miscarriages of justice. Post-conviction DNA testing offers the unique opportunity to correct the mistakes of our criminal justice system while helping it to become more fair and reliable. With states being denied access to the appropriated millions for DNA testing, errors will likely go uncorrected and further mistakes are certain.

I don't have all the answers to the problems facing our criminal justice system, but I do know that there are other cases like mine out there. I feel a personal responsibility to each state that has been denied this grant money for post-conviction DNA testing. As this program bears my name, I feel it is my obligation to ensure that it is funded and implemented as it was meant to be. No one should have to wait 20 years for justice.

The Department of Justice has the money and the guidance from Congress needed to make the Bloodsworth DNA testing program work. The time for excuses is over.

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is the first person sentenced to death row in the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. He is the program officer of The Justice Project, a nonpartisan organization that works to address unfairness and inaccuracy in the criminal justice system, with a focus on the capital punishment system.

Comments

[rlc41]

I once got sucked up on the wrong side of the legal system one day just driving to work when a half blind 90 year old man turned in front of me and I hit him almost head on. No one was hurt but this incidence, that was no way my fault screwed with my life big time for almost a year. He was legally blind actually and a worker at the DMV branch admitted to "coaching" him so he could pass the test. Come to find out this license branch was found to be knoiw for helping older people to keep their license. His family admitted they knew he shouldn't be driving. He got an operating left of center ticket he paid by mail and I got charged driving in violation of a restriction on my license, a class C misdomenaer punishable by a $5000 fine and 6 months in jail. It had on my license that I needed glasses. I hadn't even noticed the restriction was on there. I have 20/40 vision uncorrected. I got new license, no restrictions. I got an eye exam. And still is seemed they were damned determined to send me to jail. After getting a lawyer and paying bunches of bucks, all charges were finally dropped. I made the mistake of assuming I would run into some common sense. It doesn't even exist in our current legal system.

I know, this was just a speck on the wall. But it certainly opened my eyes that the legal system is a black hole once it has you. Don't screw with it. It isn't there to provide safety or security for the masses. It's there to screw you!

[splashy]

Unbelievable. Don't they WANT to get the REAL perpetrator? What is wrong with them?

To fight crime, you need to get the ones that do the crime, not innocent people.

Makes NO sense at all!

[MysticInd]

So this is their new tactic...pass it and then not fund it...

Another reason to make one disenchanted with our system!

[ljsfolly]

Like the No Child Left Behind not being funded I think we know by now that whatever good there might be in a law or bill passed is negated by the no funds for it. But bush will go to hell and back telling all what HE did signing the bill/law. But we also remember all those laws/bills he signed worth something that needed no funds so much as his not going out of his way to be sure he had a way out of the bill/law with the signing statements. Covered his ass so he's not singing songs about sing sing in prison for all he's done with Cheney to break every law they could.

[FreeThinkn1]

I doubt that any victim would prefer to destroy an innocent person and let the perpetrator go free. Fortunately for Mr. Bloodsworth it was not too late; however, that's not always the outcome.

"... a Houston Chronicle investigative reporter uncovered evidence indicating that when Texas executed Ruben Cantu in 1993, it executed an innocent young man. His formerly silent co-defendant has since signed an affidavit saying that Cantu was not with him during the time of the killing, and the lone eyewitness to the crime recently recanted his story, saying that he was pressured by the police into accusing Cantu. No physical evidence ever linked Cantu to the killing; potential alibi witnesses were never presented; and even the former district attorney who made the decision to charge Cantu with a capital offense now says that he never should have sought the death penalty."
Human Rights Watch

How many innocent people have to die before capital punishment is stopped? Is it twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand? Exactly how many?

[falco]

On top of it all, there are serious repercussions in the trend of privitizing prisons. Here's a link that will explain:

http://mediafilter.org/caq/Prison.html

Thanks for you article and I hope someday we will have a government who cares.

[Libsrule]

Not surprising considering Texas put into law that if you don't come up with new evidence within THIRTY DAYS of your conviction you lose your right to appeal.

And gotta remember this DOJ is run by the same people who are anxious to have a conveyeror belt execution system. Convicted, onto the belt straight to the execution chamber and they ain't none to happy about not being able to just pull a gun out in court and shooting them right between the eyes after conviction either.

The DOJ is no longer remotely interested in justice, just promoting a political agenda as evidenced by the AUSA's who were fired for refusing to indict innocent democrats right before elections and who DID go after a democratic candidate who is probably innocent while ignoring the two republicans currently IN office who are guilty as hell.

So we can only hope this long national nightmare will be over soon and the DOJ actually becomes what it was supposed to be. A DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.

[research]

DA's believe they never make mistakes, or at least they won't admit to it. I saw one DA refuse to reconsider someone, even though the DNA evidence cleared them. The DA said the courts had spoken.

Keep up the good work Bloodsworth.

See if you can find a web site for use to push our legislators to action.

[RTIII]

Well... Tell us who to call to help release the log jam. What committee oversees the DOJ? Etc...

By the way, I'm glad you're out and I'm glad you're still fighting the good fight. There are SO MANY urgent problems we all can't fight all of them. Keep it up! We need people like you to keep us all aware and keep pressure on the right spots.

[arkansawtravler]

In a related issue, "The Memphis Three" had independent DNA testing conducted. DNA from one of the victim's father was present and none from the three young men who were convicted for the murders. Considering the gruesomeness of the crime, it is almost inexplicable to think that whoever committed the crime would not leave some DNA evidence. The current state attorney general refuses to reconsider, so convicted they remain. The American Justice System is not about "justice", it is about locking them up and throwing away the key. Oops I forgot, if you got the dough then you can blow.

[Danny]

This is heartbreaking. Thank you, Mr. Bloodsworth for persevering in your noble cause in spite of the obstacles. Remember MLK -- "We Shall Overcome, someday".