"A mind enclosed in language is in prison." ~Simone Well
Can you imagine spending your whole life in prison, for something you didn't do? Living with an innocence no one else can see? Walking in the shoes of a criminal though your conscious is clean? Many people have been falsely convicted and lose their lives for something they didn't do. One of the most common reasons this happens it through eye witness misidentification. The victim is ready to accuse for what happened to them and they may match their memory with a completely innocent person. Additionally, the line up may be rigged in multiple ways. The administrator of the line up test may know who the suspect is, the suspect may not be in the line up and the victim has to base their choice off of relativity. So instead of having one person to match with their memory, they have a line of people and they can only know who did it by their comparison of who looks closest to their memory. Another reason people are wrongly incarcerated is through governmental misconduct. In a situation with social pressure, the police are eager to accuse someone to ease the population. Also, the prosecutor can lie about evidence in different cases like in the Lori Rosetti case. In 1986, DNA fingerprinting was discovered. Through this science, many people have been accurately convicted. However, a few years later, this new development helped wrongly convicted people be exonerated. Kirk Bloodsworth is one of these 305 cases of exoneration through DNA fingerprinting.
A nine year old girl was found dead in July of 1984. In March of 1985, Kirt Bloodsworth was convicted of killing and sexually assaulting the victim. The reports stated that the girl had been strangled and beaten to death with a rock. Five different eye witnesses were used to convict Bloodsworth. In the trial, multiple pieces of evidence were used. The five witnesses were in unanimous agreement that they had seen Bloodsworth with the victim. Additionally, the suspect mentioned that he may have done something that would affect his relationship with his wife. However, this incident regarding the relationship with his wife was simple not purchasing her dietary requests earlier that day. Also, the suspect mentioned a rock, but only because during the police interrogation a rock was shown as evidence to Bloodsworth. Here we have two causes of wrongful convictions; eyewitness misidentification and governmental misconduct. After being found guilty, Bloodsworth was convicted with two consecutive life sentences. (How this is possible, I'm not really sure.) However, this case was turned around in 1992. The Forensics Science Associates performed DNA testing on the evidence found at the crime scene to compare to the DNA of Bloodsworth under the order of the prosecution. At the scene, shorts and underwear of the victim were found and used for DNA testing as well as a stick. Using the DNA found in the spermatozoa, it was proven that Bloodsworth's DNA did not match that found at the crime scene. The FBI performed the same tests and their conclusions were congruent to previous tests. Eight years later, Kirt Bloodsworth was exonerated in July of 1993. Bloodsworth became the first case of exoneration from death row.
After reading his story and listening to other stories similar to this, I really had a deeper thirst for knowledge on all of it. I became extremely intrigued by the field of forensics as well as lawyering and the restrictions. Something else that came up for me was an interest in psychology. What causes people to do bad things, first of all? Then, what keeps a person together in prison even if they are innocent? These horrible stories and awful accounts of wrongful convictions have made me angry. Not necessarily angry at the system, more frustrated towards the people involved. And the people actually committing these crimes. And angry towards society being so willing to believe what figures of authority say and not even questioning it. I feel like as a society, we have so much power and we don't even realize it. We are all too willing to believe whatever our screens tell us. Oh, a police man said that? It must be true. We have lost the ability to think about things deeper. It's this state of complacency that we have reached where we are happy to believe what we are told, even if it means the life of someone else. Oh it just gets me fired up and frustrated. But more importantly than that, it makes me want to change myself and the way that society continues to be herded like sheep by the media.
To watch an interview with Kirt, follow the link: http://www.oneforten.com/kirk-noble-bloodsworth
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