WEBVTT - #016 Jason Flom with Kirk Bloodsworth 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:05.400 My Interview with Kirk Bludsworth originally aired on March twenty, 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.760 twenty seventeen. Kirk, of course, was a guy who was 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.400 sentenced to death and was the first DNA death row 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:17.640 ex honery in America. His story has to be heard 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:19.119 to believe. You may not even be able to believe 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.680 it after you hear it, but it's a phenomenal story. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.639 He's a phenomenal guy. I'm happy to say that he 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.520 had become very close ever since this episode aired, and 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:33.160 even I guess before. But today Kirk is an accomplished 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.640 jewelry artisan. He's an activist, a writer, and a public 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.839 speaker on issues of wrongful conviction and the death penalty. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:44.400 He makes these incredible rings. He has ex hoonnery rings 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.440 and also death row ex honery rings that so many 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.199 of the ex honeries wear, And I think you'd have 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.000 to ask them, but you know, I know how much 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:58.120 it means to them to have these beautiful pieces of 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.480 jewelry made by one of their own. I mean, nobody 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.200 should ever have to wear that ring, but if you've 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.680 been through that, I think it's a powerful statement that 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:11.880 you can wear in your finger. In twenty nineteen, Kirk 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.520 was named the interim executive director of Witness to Innocence, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.160 a group of death row exanneriees who advocate to end 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.720 the death penalty and have been successful in a number 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.080 of states already, so their work is phenomenal. 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.119 Kirk, you're one of my heroes. Keep up the great work. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.440 With the police banging on the door, open up. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:43.839 The choice to be in that lineup was the last 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:45.319 choice I made as a free man. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.920 A year later, I ended up writing the system, I'm 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.840 going to be one of those people who everyone in 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:53.040 the world is going to think as. 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.120 A monster or suspect as a monster for the rest 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:56.320 of my life, and I'm just going to have to 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:57.120 come to peace with that. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.040 Somebody was able to look get my picture in the 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.640 database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.000 I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.239 might have to play in my hanging. They had been 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.440 told that two prison officers would have to participate in 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.680 my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.040 the last time. Man, all hell broke loose. 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:31.960 But welcome back to Rafel Conviction with Jason Flamm, our 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.959 guest today is an extraordinary man. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.200 Kirk Bloodsworth twice. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.280 He was convicted of the nineteen eighty four murder and 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.440 sexual assault of nine year old Don Hamilton. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.440 Convicted of murder, he spent nearly nine years in prison, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.120 including two on death row. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.600 In nineteen ninety three, DNA testing exonerated him. It was 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.560 not available at the time of the nineteen eighty four crime. 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.320 One advocate for abolishing the death penalty is Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.639 the first person whose capital conviction was ever overturned because NA. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:02.760 Kirk. Welcome to the show. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.320 Glad to be here, Jason, thanks for having me. 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:05.600 So. 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.600 When I say Kirk is an extraordinary man that takes 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.040 on a number of meetings, Kirk has the distinction I 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.720 guess you would call it of being the first DNA 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.920 X hognery from death row in the United States. Chew 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.280 on that for a second, right, first DNA exonnery from 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.320 death row. Now, by way of background, Kirk was a 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:29.120 US Marine honorably discharged, had no issues with the law 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.600 or anything else at the time that he was arrested 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.800 and ultimately convicted in a gruesome crime sexual assault and 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.840 murder of a nine year old girl and in his case. 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.680 The police overlooked is a nice way to say it. 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.120 A guy who would have been the obvious suspect and 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.840 who turned out to be the actual killer. So Kirk, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.920 let's go back. This story takes place quite a while ago, 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.400 because your life took a horrible turn in nineteen eighty four. 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.480 But let's go back even before that. Give a little context. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.560 How you grew up. How'd you end up in the Marines. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.720 Well, my dad was a marine, so you know, you 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.840 regaled all those stories about Marines and being in a 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.240 marine corps in Paris, Island. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.400 So you served for how many years? 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.320 Four years and two years reserve? 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.680 Right, So you're in the Marines, you come out, and 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.240 you're back home in Maryland. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:16.360 Right right. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.159 I want to become a crab fisherman, what we call 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.200 a woodman on the eastern shore of Maryland where I 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.839 grew up in a small town called Cambridge. My father 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.600 was a fisherman, his father, his father and so on, 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.960 and it goes back a couple hundred years. From what 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.360 I understand. Everybody in Cambridge pretty much works in and 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.159 around the water business, whether it's processing, whether it's catching 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.919 the fish or delivering it. So my father crabbed and 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.680 fished all his life. And there's even an island in 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.599 the Chesapea Bay named after my family called Bloodsworth Island. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.680 Yeah, so you had some deep roots and really truly 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.440 following in your father's footsteps, Like straight down the line. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:05:00.320 There you are back in Maryland, having served your country honorably, discharge, arched, 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:05.040 and your life took the most terrible turn that is 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:06.480 really imaginable. 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.040 I mean, it doesn't get worse. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:10.479 And that's one of the things that draws me to 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.120 this work that I do with the Innocence Project is 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.440 that I never could and I still can't, and I 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.160 never will be able to imagine anything worse than being 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.719 wrongly convicted and sent to prison, much less death row 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.520 for something you didn't do. And that's exactly what happened 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.839 to you, exactly, And let's talk about that because it 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:34.800 seems so insane that you would become a suspect in 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.000 a terrible, gruesome crime. I mean, I would think they 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.280 would be looking for somebody who's got a history. This 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.040 is not the type of crime that somebody just one 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.520 day who's living a normal life. It's like I'm going 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.920 to go out in sexual assault and murder. I'm really 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.000 a young child, I mean a nine year old. This 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:53.640 is this is bad stuff. 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.640 You're just a little girl out playing a game of 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.039 hide and go seek. On July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.000 and two thirty that afternoon, her friends they were all 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.680 playing this game, and she was that she couldn't find them, 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:10.440 and she came back up to the house. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:12.880 According to her aunt that was watching. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.880 Her that day, and said, well, go back to the woods. 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.000 This is in Baltimore County, Maryland. There was a wooded 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.680 area and there's a pond there called Bethkee's Bond, And 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.679 she said, you go to the fence line, you holler 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.080 in the woods and tell them to get out of there, 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.479 because it's not supposed to be in. Theres a lot 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.160 of less savory fellas and people in that area. There's 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:33.840 a lot of things happening in that wood and she 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.359 didn't want her back there. So about half an hour later, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.120 this was some time around eleven or so in the morning, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.000 her friends came back and she did not, and at 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.640 two thirty that afternoon they found her lying face down 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.599 in a pile of leaves. Her head was crushed. She 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.760 was nude from the waist down. Her clothes had been 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.520 discarded in a tree not far from her body, and 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.880 she was assaulted with a stick. That is what this 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.080 honorably just chars Marine was charged with and never seeking 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.279 a death pellty in my case. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.159 So how did this come about? Why? 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.440 You my first wife, she was from Baltimore County and 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.520 she lived in and around the area of where this happened. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.560 I had just hitchhiked up there four for July weekend 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.320 and wanted to be with my wife. You know, she 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.440 had left Cambridge. She didn't like the waterman's life. It 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.080 was sixteen hour days all summer. I was hardly home. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.720 I was crabbing, you know, and working. And she couldn't 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.760 stand that she was from the city and it's a 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.000 little different where she was from, and she wanted to 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.840 go back home, and so I put her on her 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.440 bus and sent her back home. I just got pining 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.680 over her, and I wanted to go back. So I 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.280 hitchhiked with the shoes on my feet, and that was 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.720 it that I had an old pair of discus shoes 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.280 and I got dropped off. I got a ride and 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:50.160 dropped off, and that was the fourth of July. 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:50.640 Weekend. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.680 I had just got paid from this crab herd. I 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.880 was working for just a couple hundred bucks because of 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.280 the season just started and it wasn't really much going 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.720 on yet. She wasn't really happy to see me, as 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.000 it turned out, and I was there for less than 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.680 a month now. When Dawn was found that afternoon on 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.320 July twenty fifth, a search ensued for this person that 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.920 was seen by two little boys. Now there was a 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:18.760 total of five eyewitnesses in this case who positively identified 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.000 me as the last person seen with Thawn. I'd never 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.200 seen her in my life, and I'm going to kind 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.280 of like bringing us together. So they were searching for 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.720 a man. The little boys who had seen her. They 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.720 were fishing in that pond I told you about, and 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.480 Dawn had come along asked them to help her find 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.000 her friends. They declined. They had just caught this turtle, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.600 they said, and they were more interested in that now. 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.240 They described this man as being six foot five, curly, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.719 blonde hair, bushy mustache, tan skin, and skinny. Well, that 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.000 last description wouldn't never fit me in no kind of way. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.600 Or the blonde hair. My hair was as red as 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.679 the walls in this room. I have to tell you 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.400 cyburns down to here. I had a red mustache. I 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.240 looked like the brawnie man if I put on a 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.640 flannel shirt and you sure ain't six five now I'm 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.320 six foot tall at best, and I weighed something like 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.920 two hundred and thirty pounds. Back then, I was a 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.880 big kid, you know, twenty three years old. So they 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.960 arrest me on a Thursday. I was in Cambridge. My 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.800 wife and I had broke up. I came back home. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.439 This was the week of August eighth. I would be 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.959 arrested the next day, on August ninth, and at two 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.160 forty five in the morning, waking up on the couch 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.319 with the police banging on the door. 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:39.320 Open up. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.440 It's the Baltimore County Police Department. They said, we have 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.840 a warrant for arrest of Kirk Bludsworth. And I go 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.720 to the door myself, lights are shining in my face. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.760 Step outside, mister Blusboroth. Somebody called me a son of 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:52.560 a bitch. And then that was the last time I 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.240 seen Cambridge, Maryland for about eight years ten months. In 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.680 nineteen days now they had showed the picture of a polari. 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.160 He took a polard shot of me when they questioned 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.440 me the day prior, and they showed it to the 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.400 two little boys and they said, well, he looks like 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.320 the guy, but his hair is too red. They still 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.199 would not They claimed that it was the picture. There 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.200 ain't no way you could look at me in nineteen 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.080 eighty four and not say that I had red hair. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.440 So they called each and every witness in the case. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.720 They told them not to watch television. We arrested his suspect. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.160 By the way, his name is Kirk Bludsworth. And this 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.079 was a very high profile case. We're talking a small community. 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:33.720 Nothing like this ever happens. 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.000 Oh, they were coke units. 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.160 Everybody was search of her and understandably though, there was 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.560 a lot of stuff going on at that time and 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.080 they didn't have any idea, but they did. They just 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.000 never went back to check on anybody. There were so 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.679 many suspects. So they called the witnesses and tell him 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.200 not to watch TV because we rested suspect and he's 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.240 going to be on a lineup on Monday. I was 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.880 arrested on a Thursday. The lineup comes, nobody identify some 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.880 pick out police officers. They had four cops in my 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.760 line up so the two main witnesses were the two 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.040 little boys. They never identified me in the lineup. Two 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.120 weeks later, their parents called the Balmer County Police that 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.959 our children have made a mistake. It's really number six 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.480 and that's the position I stood in. So the parents 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.160 were in the lineup with the kids. Yeah, they wouldn't 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:23.680 let the little kids in the well, and they also 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.640 drove home together and drove to the place together. It 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.520 was a lot of different things. What I know of 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.920 law enforcement, you never put witnesses in the same room 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.840 or to try to identify anybody. This whole thing really 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.800 started from the older child making a composite sketch that's 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.000 circulated in the area, and there was five hundred tips 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.800 that came on a tip line. What directed this whole 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.840 thing toward me was a next door neighbor calling the 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.480 police and saying that that composite sketch looks like my 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.720 neighbor Kirk. That's how it all began, by somebody pointing 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:57.400 a finger at me. 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.240 Right, That's exactly how it all began, and that's where 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.760 it all started. To put everybody on notice that they 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.839 wanted to get you. Once they had that, they were 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.000 like all right. We got a lot of pressure. We 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.120 got to get somebody right because this is going to 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.120 be pandemonium in the community. Nobody wants their kid to 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.560 be next. Right, This is a real, real bad guy 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.079 out there. But it's hard to imagine how someone in 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.520 law enforcement, anyone in law enforcement in a community like that, 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:26.439 like Cambridge, MARYLD, which is probably like a lot of 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.160 other communities around the country, if you know that you've 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.480 got a guy in your midst who is capable of 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.600 the most terrible crime imaginable, which is exactly what happened here, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.120 I would think that you would be laser focused on 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.679 making sure you got the right guy. If for no 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.360 other reason, then your family might be next if you 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.920 just because by definition, if you work in law enforcement 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.920 in a particular community, you live in that community. And 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.560 everybody's got some kind of family, even if you're not 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.120 married or don't have kids, you may have a sister 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:58.520 or a niece or a nephew or whatever the hell 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.559 it is, and you don't want that person to fall victim. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.200 And I think that most law enforcement people are you know, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.000 they certainly get into it for the right reasons. No 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:07.760 one gets into it to get rich and I think 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.120 they want to do good. But sometimes in these cases, 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.800 the pressure and the I don't want to call it excitement, 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.640 but the urge to solve it gets so it overrides 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.959 these common sensical type of instincts and these and then 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.920 somebody like you ends up locked up and the perpetrator 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.160 goes free. And when the perpetrator is free, they're free 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:29.839 to do it again. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.000 Let's see, early on they had there's numerous suspects in 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.440 this case. It was over five hundred tips that came 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.439 in on the tip line, but there was a suspect, 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.559 and there's this guy came in eight days before I 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.200 was arrested, and he had been released from prison or 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:51.400 from jail pending trial based on what two girls had 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.280 said that he tried to accost him in Bush's next 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.400 to rail yard. This was two weeks before Dawn's murder. 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.120 He was let go and cut loose and they never 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.240 went back to check. That was eight days before I 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.640 was arrested. And I'll tell you what, I'd imagine that 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.960 the Baltimore County Police Department still haunts them today for 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:12.680 not doing that well. 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.320 It would sure seem like again going back and comparing 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.680 and contrasting. You have you on the one side, an 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.960 honorably discharged marine, and then on the other side you 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:27.040 got a guy who several days earlier was accused, not 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:28.520 convicted yet, but accused. 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.000 He was accused a year before as well, but they 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.520 couldn't have the children wouldn't testify against him, so they 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.560 had to let him go. This woman seen him that day, 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.400 running and sweating profusely. He was later arrested three weeks after. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.240 I was for another tempted murdering rape of a woman 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.160 in Fells Point, maryl. We busted in her door and 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:51.440 tried to cut her throat. 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.400 And was he convicted of that crime? He was. 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.400 Actually the girl got the knife from him and somehow 0:14:57.560 --> 0:14:59.320 stabbed him in the foot and they followed the blood 0:14:59.360 --> 0:14:59.920 to his house. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.760 Oh she's a very brave one. She she's really a hero. 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.080 She's a chance and in my opinion, oh yeah, never 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:07.800 met her, but I don't know. 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.480 But whoever she is, I hope she's listening. She has 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.800 my respect and I know yours too. I see your 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.240 face sitting up talking about it. So so now things 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.080 get really crazy, right So here you are you have 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.080 no experience with the criminal justice system. Your family has 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.400 no experience with the criminal justice system, and all of 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.520 a sudden, you're locked up and you're not getting out. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.400 There's no bail, there's no you're not going anywhere until 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.320 they figure this out, right, and they're on a mission 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.040 now to get you. So if you weren't a wealthy guy, 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:36.280 I mean, you just. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.000 Have any money, right, you started fishing that summer and 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.600 we just got married. We were broke as you can get. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.160 My wife, Wanda, didn't have any money. Her parents and 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.360 my father had a house and he would eventually mortgage 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.400 that house to try to help me. I had two trials, 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.200 and my god, it just turned into a surrealistic nightmare. 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.680 So day one, let's talk about when the story of 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.040 how you first met your court appointed lawyer, right, because 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.720 if everybody knows, if you can't afford a lawyer, the 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.600 constitution guarantees you the right to a lawyer, doesn't necessarily 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.520 guarantee you the right to a genius. Although, like I said, 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.280 I always want to temper that by saying, there are 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.560 a lot of There are a lot of very talented 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.120 public defenders out there, and they are a thankless job 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:20.080 and a brutal job. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.920 But in your case. You ended up with a clown. 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.040 I well, you know, I struck the lottery of inconfidence. 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.920 I'd have to say. Now, I want your listeners to 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.720 picture a prison visiting room. This is my first visit 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.400 with my court appointed attorney. And he comes into the 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.000 room through an archway that's eight foot high and about 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.600 eight foot wide. We have to talk to a glass 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.320 and on a telephone type of application to talk. He 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.120 sits with his back to a brick wall, and the 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.320 first thing out of his mouth he says, Kirk, you're 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.440 in a lot of trouble. I thought that was very 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:57.120 astudent him right off the back, but he says, don't worry. 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.160 I know my way around the courtroom, I know my 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.560 way around a criminal justice system, and we're going to 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.960 find our way out of here together. And actually it 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.040 made me feel a little better. He was really up 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.240 on his heels. He was going to help me prove 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.200 my innocence. Right before he leaves, he reiterated the same thing, 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.040 says Kirk, I know my way around the courtroom, I 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.840 know my way around the criminal justice system. We're going 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.240 to find our way out of here together. He put 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.639 his hand on the glass as a jester to say goodbye. 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.800 He picked up his briefcase, turned around and ran right 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.480 into the wall. He wouldn't talk to me. That was 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.000 only one of three visits this man came to see 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.240 me in the eight months it took the seventy to 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:44.639 death row. The trial lasted two weeks, and when the 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.280 gavel came down, all my life man. The courtroom erupted 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.639 an applause, like if we're at some game and somebody 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.600 scored a winning touchdown for the team, that everybody like 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.960 they had quite the arsenal against me. I had that guy. 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.560 They couldn't find his way out of the jail. I 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.840 don't see how in a world you can make justice 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.160 come from that situation. It's like shooting a slingshot up 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.560 at howitzer from on the top of a hill that's 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.760 a hundred feet high. You cannot win that way. And 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.720 that's the way they set up a lot of these cases. 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.120 And that's why so many people end up pleading guilty, 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.239 because they realize that their odds of winning are so 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.600 infinitesimally small as yours were in this case. When I 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.119 think you're David and Goliath, analogy is pretty good, except 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.880 for there's no winning in this case, there's no happy ending. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.080 So Don Hamilton was the one that lost her memory 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.080 lives on indeed, and I think that when justice was 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.520 finally done in this case, that's the only thing we 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.160 can do to honor her memory, I guess, is to. 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:49.879 Actually get the real guy off the streets. 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.440 So now you're convicted and sentenced to death, and for you, 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:55.440 it was as bad as it can get. 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.600 In nineteen eighty five, the Maryland Penitentiary in Ireland was 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.760 probably one of the worst prisons in the United States 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.280 at that time. A guard had been disin bout two 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.760 weeks before I got there Jesus from a perceived insult 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.760 from another inmate. I walked on this tier when I 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.080 stepped off the bus, and when I stepped I had 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.440 to hop as I had leg irons, waist chain cuffs 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.920 and so forth. And you have to kind of like penguin, 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.159 walk through this place till you get to yourself. And 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.879 he locked you right in and they put me on 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.119 that same wing that he was killed on. Now I 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.199 can tell you all that my life expectancy was not 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.320 supposed to be. I wasn't supposed to be alive after 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:41.800 nine years basically, I mean because of what I was 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:42.360 charged with. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:43.440 Right in prison. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.199 Of course, the pecking order, the bottom of the pecking 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.600 order is people who are charged with exactly what you 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.919 were charged with, which is which is hurting, harming, or 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.120 even worse, sexually assaulting a child, and of course snitches. Right, 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.080 those are the people that are at the highest risk 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.800 of being killed. Inside you're under bo of the wrongs 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.560 of the ladder. You're under defeated the ladder, right, and 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.359 here you are, but you're looking at one of the 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.320 only cats that ever walked out in population on his own. 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.920 I remember my cell body next door to me. 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.160