MARYLAND RECEIVES NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE (NIJ) BLOODSWORTH AWARD

Grant named for Kirk Bloodsworth will help wrongly convicted inmates prove their innocence

ANNAPOLIS, MD (September 30) – Governor Martin O’Malley today announced that Maryland is one of nine states to receive the first Bloodsworth Awards given by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ.) The award, named for Maryland resident Kirk Bloodsworth, the first incarcerated person to be cleared through DNA testing, will be used to help other wrongly convicted inmates try to prove their innocence.

“The advent of advanced DNA testing provides law enforcement a vital tool to find and convict criminals quickly, and this new grant will give us the means to use DNA testing to help clear the wrongfully convicted,” said Governor Martin O’Malley.

“Post-conviction DNA testing is a wonderful program that’s a win for Maryland,” said Bloodsworth. “It’s a win for the justice system, for the people who are wrongly convicted, and for the victims as well.”

Bloodsworth was originally sentenced to death more than 20 years ago for the murder of a young girl in Baltimore County. Nine years later, post conviction DNA testing exonerated him, led to the identity of the man who committed this crime, and brought justice to the murder victim and her family.

With the $307,000 in funds received from NIJ, the Governor’s Office of Crime Control & Prevention (GOCCP) will make funding available to the University of Baltimore’s Innocence Project Clinic to help with case screenings; case reviews and document collection; investigations into inmate assertions of factual innocence; forensic DNA testing; and the documentation of this overall process. Funding will also be made available to the Forensic Investigation Unit of the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office for desktop and laptop computers to track and maintain documentation in forensic DNA cases that may subsequently qualify for post-conviction DNA testing.

This funding will help ensure that those inmates with factual innocence claims who could benefit from post-conviction DNA testing are able to obtain counsel and secure the necessary tests. Before the Bloodsworth grant was awarded to Maryland, inmates who asserted factual innocence had to pay for their own DNA testing and investigations.