Authors: Tim Junkin
The next day, Stein felt confident. The buzz around the courthouse was that Bloodsworth would walk. The courtroom clerk, anticipating a not-guilty verdict, began preparing release papers. Ann Brobst chain-smoked outside the judge's chambers. “If he's acquitted,” she snapped at Stein, “I'm going to throw myself out the window.”
“You should dismiss this case,” Stein fired back. “To even go forward on the evidence you have is reprehensible.”
For six hours the jury deliberated before reaching a verdict. Finally, they came back to announce their unanimous decision. Kirk's insides were churned when he rose to hear it. Six hours was much longer than before. Long enough to acquit, he thought. He faced the foreman and listened to the verdict. Kirk Bloodsworth was guilty on all counts. Guilty! Kirk was stunned. His face burned crimson. The words sheared through his brain. He couldn't believe it. Kirk hung his head and sobbed. He was nearly cried out. Once again, guards took him back to a cage; again he was a dead man walking.
T
HE MENTAL HEALTH
clinic director, Dr. Gene Ostrom, was surprised, two years after his phone call to Judge Hinkel, to receive a subpoena to testify in a posttrial hearing in the Dawn Hamilton murder case. Not only did he have to appear, but several of his staff were summoned to testify as well.
Leslie Stein had filed a motion for a new trial alleging once again that the failure of the state to turn over exculpatory evidence in a timely manner was a violation of
Brady v. Maryland
. Judge Smith agreed to hold an evidentiary hearing on the matter, set for June 12, 1987. If the motion were denied, Judge Smith intended to go forward with Kirk's sentencing immediately following the hearing.
Again, Kirk Bloodsworth had been forced to make the impossible choice of whether to be sentenced for a rape and capital murder he didn't commit by the jury that convicted him or by the judge who presided over his trial. This time Leslie Stein counseled him at length about this decision, though Kirk seemed distant, absent, off in some zone of trauma. Still, after repeated discussions, Kirk agreed that he'd been impressed by Judge Smith's manner. Smith seemed to be a gentle man. Kirk thought he might also be merciful.
Despite the mistake he made going with Judge Hinkel the first time, Kirk elected to be sentenced by Judge Smith.
Over the days following the verdict, Kirk's emotions careened from one extreme to another. He felt he was living in a world gone mad, chained inside some insane theatrical production that kept repeating itself. Days went by when he could hardly speak. He'd cry for hours, then get angry. Gradually, as his June hearing date approached, a flat obstinacy took root. He asked his dad to buy him a new sweat suitâpants and jerseyâall black, and black tennis shoes to match. He would dress in black at his sentencing as a way to protest the court's injustice. Black, from then on, would symbolize his innocence.
At the posttrial hearing on Stein's motion for a new trial, Dr. Ostrom told the court that in July 1984 he'd been the director of a community mental health center near Rosedale. David Rehill had been well known to his staff as a patient of the center. Ostrom related how he'd called Judge Hinkel in March of 1985 and told him of his concerns about Rehill. Until recently, he told the court, no one had ever followed up with him about these concerns.
Ostrom related that on July 25, the day of Dawn Hamilton's murder, Rehill showed up at the clinic sometime after noon and asked to talk to a counselor. He was not scheduled for a visit that day and was willing to wait three hours to see someone. An employee of Ostrom's testified that Rehill wanted to talk about a relationship he had with a little girl that day. Ostrom's secretary remembered that Rehill was wearing some kind of shirt that showed off his muscles and that he had scratches on him. He had curly hair then, and she was pretty sure he had a mustache. Another employee remembered that he was wearing shorts, probably light colored.
Here was a man, similar to the portrait in the composite sketch, dressed like the stranger at Bethke's Pond, with curly hair and a
mustache, who showed up unannounced at a mental health clinic, with scratches on his face, shortly after Dawn Hamilton was killed, asking for counseling over his relationship with a little girl. Yet he'd never been put a in a lineup and his photograph had never been shown to the eyewitnesses.
Leslie Stein had subpoenaed David Rehill to this hearing. He called Rehill to the stand. Rehill had a lawyer accompanying him. Rehill answered a few questions about his personal appearance back in July of 1984, but when asked where he was on July 25, his attorney objected. He raised Rehill's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to allow him to answer. Stein requested that the state give him immunity so that he would be required to answer the questions. The prosecutors declined. Stein argued passionately. He accused the state of bad faith if it refused to do so. If the state were at all interested in the truth, he argued to Judge Smith, it would grant Rehill immunity to find out what he knew before it would send a citizen to the gas chamber.
Ann Brobst and Michael Pulver had deaf ears. They declined to give Rehill immunity. They never seriously entertained it. The state already had its culprit. It had no interest in further prolonging the inquiry.
Leslie Stein then argued before Judge Smith that his motion for a new trial should be granted. Upon first learning of Ostrom's phone call to Judge Hinkel, Stein had sent out an investigator to interview people at the community health center, but the witnesses with the critical information were off work that day. Stein hadn't had sufficient time to follow up and conduct a thorough investigation in the few days before trial. He had no way of knowing how significant the evidence was. The state's conduct in withholding the information for two years was inexcusable, he argued. And the evidence was compelling that Rehill, not Bloodsworth, may have killed Dawn
Hamilton. Certainly this evidence deserved further study. A new trial was warranted.
Pulver and Brobst argued that Rehill was not exhaustively investigated because he didn't meet the description given of the suspect. Rehill was only five feet eight inches tall and weighed 180 pounds, as opposed to the six-foot-tall muscular man the child witnesses had described.
Judge Smith became agitated, then angry. He was outraged, he said, at the Baltimore County detectives for not following through with an investigation of Rehill, for not putting Rehill in a lineup. The discrepancy in the descriptions, given by children in the first place, was of little significance, and the decision to ignore David Rehill as a suspect was ridiculous, he said. Judge Smith further lambasted the state's attorney's office for waiting two years to provide the information to the defense. “I am disappointed in the state's attorney's office,” he said. “I am disturbed,” he said. “It isn't gamesmanship we are playing here. It is truth. You represent your position, that's true. But the ultimate is truth . . .”
For a moment, Leslie Stein thought Judge Smith was going to grant a new trial. As Smith vented his anger, Stein began poking Kirk in the ribs with his elbow. “He's going to do it,” Stein whispered. “He's going to do it . . .”
But then Judge Smith changed tacks. He was also uncomfortable that Leslie Stein had not moved for a continuance of the trial date, even though he had learned of this new information just days in advance of trial. A continuance would have allowed the defense ample time to investigate the new information. Judge Smith thought that Leslie Stein was a smart and capable lawyer. He wasn't sure, but he wondered whether Stein had tried to play both ends. Smith did not feel the court could permit the defendant to sit on the new information, not request a continuance, and then after he
lost the trial come forward and claim prejudice. The only fair analysis, Judge Smith reasoned, led to the conclusion that the evidence was not newly discovered
after
the trial. It was known to the defense
before
the trial. Hence, the motion would be denied.
Kirk once again was crushed. His hopes had come alive, only to be snuffed out again. Rehill and his lawyer were excused. This man, who might very well be guilty of the murder, was walking away, free. Judge Smith took a recess. Upon his return, the sentencing of Kirk Bloodsworth would go forward.
J
EANETTE
B
LOODSWORTH HAD
wanted to accompany Curtis to the sentencing this time. She wore a floral dress and held a handkerchief up to her eyes. She had come to lend support to her boy. Cindy Bloodsworth and several other cousins were also there in the packed courtroom. During the recess, Kirk turned and found his mother's eyes. He wanted so to go to her. All he could do was watch her, slightly nod, and mouth the words that he loved her.
Leslie Stein began the sentencing hearing by calling a security guard from the detention center to vouch for Kirk's good behavior while at the jail. Stein then pointed out to the court that Kirk's family members were all in the gallery. Stein then looked at the defendant, motioned his head toward the witness stand, and called Kirk Bloodsworth to testify. Since Judge Smith had never seen Kirk testify at trial, Stein thought it important that the judge hear from him at the sentencing.
Stein asked Kirk if he committed the crime, and Kirk answered no, that he did not. Stein asked him whether he'd admit to killing Dawn Hamilton if it would save him from the gas chamber.
“No sir” was Kirk's reply.
Stein asked Kirk if he wanted to say anything else to the court. Kirk indicated that he did.
One more time Kirk Bloodsworth tried to reach inside, tried to dig within himself, tried for once to find the right words, words that would ring true. “I feel very sorry for what happened to the child and for the family and what they must be going through,” he began slowly. “There is no way in my conscience that I could kill a little child or anybody for that matter. I respect life too much and I just couldn't do it. And I didn't . . .” Kirk struggled to keep composed, to not break down before a courtroom filled with people. “If you sentence me to death, Judge, there is no way down the road we can pull it back. I have no idea who killed the child. All I know is I didn't do it. When they close the doors on that gas chamber, that's it. You can't call it back.”
He heard his own words and trembled inside. He shut his eyes and opened them. He took a breath. He wanted his voice to echo loud. Clear. To somehow reach this judge. There in this hushed and crowded courtroom, this simple waterman, dressed in black as his only means of protest, railed against the injustice of his world. “I have been locked up for almost three years now trying to prove myself to this court, pursuing every avenue I know how. The death penalty just doesn't fit me because I am not the criminal. I can't tell you a lie, Judge. I feel sorry for what happened to that child, but I am not your killer. And if you kill me, you are never going to find out. I'm not speaking for myself but for the little child; that's doing her an injustice . . . I have nothing else to say.”
The state again argued vehemently that Kirk Bloodsworth should be put to death. Judge James Smith, though, couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd had his own reservations about the quality of the evidence, and these continued to disturb him. He wasn't going to countermand the jury's verdict, but he wasn't going to sentence this young man to death either. Judge Smith, back in chambers, had reviewed the same criteria that Judge Hinkel had considered. The
crime was the same and the defendant was the same. But he had decided to exercise his discretion differently. On the bench, Judge Smith went through a long colloquy addressing these various criteria in detail. Then he sentenced Kirk to two consecutive life sentences, one to follow the other. Kirk Bloodsworth's life, to whatever extent he would have one in the Maryland Penitentiary, was saved.
I
T WAS THE SUMMER
of 1987 when Kirk was sent back to the South Wing of the old Maryland Penitentiary. The place seemed even more dank and dim, even filthier, than before. Half the bulbs in the hallway ceilings were out. Corridors were murky; many of the cells were unlit. There was little ventilation. Roaches grubbed around everywhere. In the summer the upper tier was a hothouse, a sweatbox. The men in this dark world exuded heat. The stench of excrement and urine was pervasive. The place was a cauldron of pent-up hate, an incubator of violence. When Kirk returned, still only twenty-seven, this time facing the prospect of losing his whole life to such a place, he went into a tailspin, falling hard into a sea of self-pity.
He'd lie in his bunk and watch the roaches crawl on the floor. A colorless despair took root in his belly. He had no interest in anything. The food at the prison was still barely edible. Starches, mostlyâovercooked noodles, Stroganoff, macaroni and cheese, stews, anything that could be bulked up with flour and watered down. A vague nausea plagued him. He'd lie for hours staring at the wall, unable to find a reason to get up.
For a while Kirk was put in a cell with Frankie Marrone, a Jersey loan shark with a pockmarked face. Marrone was the kind who waited for someone else's crumbs to fall off the table. He watched for weakness and tried to exploit it. Occasionally he ran drugs for one of the South Wing dealers. One afternoon late in the summer, Kirk lay in his bunk sweating and sick over his life, nearly comatose. Frankie asked him if he'd like to escape for a while. Frankie had that weasely grin on his face.
Escapeâ
what a sweet word.
Escape . . .
Frankie had gotten a hold of two “sets”âthe poor man's speedballâa combination of the narcotic Talwin and an antihistamine. Frankie'd also boosted two sterile needles from the nurse's clinic. He showed Kirk how to crush up the antihistamine, heat it with water in the concave bottom of an upside-down cutoff soda can, and mix it with the Talwin. Kirk watched, fascinated, as Frankie drew the solution up into the spike and gave Kirk his first mainline punch. Frankie was right. Kirk was transported immediately to a different place. He felt light, soothed out. For the first time in three years, the fear drained out of his chest. The world wasn't so dark. He rushed along in a flood of sweetness, riding a wave. Afterward, he wanted it again.