Mary Sloan, KCADP Executive Director, ties a yellow ribbon around the Tree of Healing at the annual Commemoration Ceremony. Thank you to all of those who participated!
Read more about the ceremony here.
Photo and Story by Glenn Bartlett (Kansas First News)
Kirk Bloodsworth, Advocacy Director of Witness to Innocence and a death row exoneree, will speak on wrongful convictions and the death penalty here in Kansas (please see below for locations, dates, and times of each event).
Mr. Bloodsworth was accused and convicted of a horrific crime: murdering and raping a nine year-old girl. The evidence used to convict him was the testimony of five eyewitnesses. He spent eight years in prison before DNA evidence proved his innocence. Mr. Bloodsworth is one of 142 individuals in the US to be sentenced to death and later found innocent. Ten years after the initial tests, investigators matched DNA from the case to the real killer.
In Kansas, DNA evidence has played a role in exonerating both Eddie Lowery and Joe Jones of rapes that they did not commit. To date, DNA evidence has led to the release of 305 individuals in the US wrongfully convicted and incarcerated from crimes they did not commit.
While in Kansas, Mr. Bloodsworth hopes his story will highlight how anyone can suffer the injustice of a wrongful conviction: “I was a former Marine with no criminal record, who was nowhere near the scene of the crime, but I was still convicted and sentenced to death for a crime I didn’t commit. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody. And it does.”
EVENTS:
Sunday, April 14th
9:15am – Grace Gathering Room at Grace UMC, 11485 S Ridgeview Rd., Olathe, KS 66061
(free to the public)
6:30pm – An Evening with Kirk Bloodsworth Dinner Event, St. David’s Episcopal Church, 3916 SW 17th St., Topeka, KS
($25 per person)
Monday, April 15th
7:00pm – Big 12 Room, Kansas Union, Level 5, University of Kansas, 1301 Jayhawk Blvd, Lawrence, KS
(free to the public)
Tuesday, April 16th
7:00pm – Dugan-Gorges Conf. Ctr., Dugan Library & Campus Ctr., Newman University, 3100 McCormick, Wichita, KS
(free to the public)
Wednesday, April 17th
7:00pm – FHSU Beach/Schmidt Performing Arts Center, 600 Park St., Hays, KS
(free to the public)
The KCADP Spring 2013 newsletter is now available online! Need to catch up on death penalty and legislative session news? Read our recap of KCADP’s legislative session work and our bill introductions! The Maryland Legislature’s vote to repeal the death penalty has been big news this Spring. Read the story about Maryland’s efforts to…
George Weeks, a KCADP volunteer from Pittsburg, was featured in the Pittsburg Morning Sun this week. George says that he always “leaned against” the death penalty, but in the last three years he has become much more supportive of abolition. Issues like the cost of the death penalty, the harmful effects for…
Bob Hessman, Dodge City, shares the story of his and his wife’s efforts to forgive the man who murdered their daughter.
