A new film, ​“Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man,” pre­mieres on August 13. The movie, described as a ​“doc­u­men­tary mem­oir,” tells the sto­ry of Kirk Bloodsworth, an inno­cent man sen­tenced to death in Maryland who became the first death row pris­on­er in the United States to be exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence. Bloodsworth was con­vict­ed and sent to death row in 1985 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of a 9‑year-old girl. He won a new tri­al as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, but was con­vict­ed again and this time sen­tenced to life. He was exon­er­at­ed in 1993 by new­ly avail­able DNA test­ing. After his exon­er­a­tion, Bloodsworth became active in efforts to reform the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and his case became sym­bol­ic of the inno­cence move­ment and the risks of wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ing and exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. In 2004, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Kirk Noble Bloodsworth Post Conviction DNA Testing Program, which gives states grants for post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing. As a result of his expe­ri­ences, Bloodsworth became a strong oppo­nent of the death penal­ty and was instru­men­tal in Maryland’s 2013 repeal of the death penal­ty. That leg­isla­tive bat­tle­ground pro­vides the back­drop for the film’s explo­ration of the events lead­ing to his exoneration.The film’s first pre­view screen­ing is in Baltimore, Maryland. A sec­ond pre­view screen­ing will take place in Boise, Idaho on September 25, and the film will be released soon after.

(“Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man,” direct­ed by Gregory Bayne (2015)) See Innocence and Multimedia.

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