Saved from Death Row, he knows the importance of DNA
The Tennessean
June 2, 2006
OP/ED
By Kirk Bloodsworth
As the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA, I know first-hand the importance of testing all available evidence in a case, especially when someone's life is at stake. Tennessee inmate Sedley Alley currently sits on death row awaiting execution while potentially exculpatory evidence in his case remains untested.
Prosecutors in the case have been fighting tooth and nail to ensure that Alley is not granted access to available DNA evidence, which begs the question: What does the state have to fear by allowing the testing to go forward? I would answer that the state has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Had it not been for DNA testing, I would still be behind bars today, serving time for a crime I did not commit. In 1984, I was arrested for the brutal rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton, 9, in Baltimore County, Md. I was only 23 years old, and I had served four years in the United States Marine Corps. I had never been arrested before in my life, had never met Dawn and knew nothing about the crime.
The only thing linking me to the murder was a composite sketch of the last man seen with Dawn, who was said to have resembled me, and several eyewitnesses who incorrectly identified me as that man. Despite testimony from family and friends that I was with them at the time of the murder, the jury convicted me. By March 1985, I was trapped in the unimaginable nightmare of facing execution despite being innocent of the crime.
At the time of my first trial, DNA testing was not very advanced. However, by 1992, DNA testing was breaking new ground. My attorneys requested that the evidence from my case be released for testing, and the Baltimore County prosecutors finally agreed.
In May of 1993, a laboratory found that the semen stain on Dawn Hamilton's underwear could not possibly have come from me. The FBI confirmed those results a month later. June 28, 1993, after spending eight years, 11 months, and 19 days of my life behind bars, I walked out of jail a free man.
In September 2003, nearly 10 years after my release, the Maryland state's attorney found a match to the DNA evidence in my case. Ironically, it belonged to a man in my cell block in the Maryland Penitentiary who was in prison for another assault. He has since been convicted of the rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton and will spend the rest of his life in jail for crimes committed against her and others.
I spoke May 15 in front of the parole board that voted 4-3 to recommend a reprieve for Sedley Alley while the DNA in his case is tested. Gov. Phil Bredesen agreed to the reprieve, but unfortunately failed to take the vital next step and mandate that the evidence in Alley's case be tested, once and for all. That reprieve has now run out.
There is no disadvantage to testing the DNA evidence — either to confirm guilt or prove innocence. In my case, it did both. Without the testing of DNA evidence in my case, the truth would never have come out, I would still be in jail, and Dawn's family would have never known justice.
I wish I could say that my case is an isolated one, but I am one of 180 people who have been exonerated by DNA and one of 14 from death row. I am living proof that our criminal justice system makes mistakes. I was wrongfully convicted not once, but twice.
When you have a vehicle for truth — one that provides as much certainty as DNA testing does — you simply must use it. The DNA testing Sedley Alley seeks would only take a short time to complete and would be done at no cost to the state. Tennessee's entire system of criminal justice — prosecutors, victims' families, prisoners and, most of all, the public — is served by the certainty DNA evidence can provide.
There can be no downside to knowing the truth. I can only hope that it does not come too late for Sedley Alley.
