>>> the first person to ever be exonerated from death row due to dna evidence was released in the state of maryland . his name is kirk . here he is on june 28th , 1993 , when he was released from prison after nearly nine years. he was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a child and dna evidence cleared him of that crime and helped identify the perpetrator. this is a picture of him today, and one of the pens the governor used to sign that state's repeal of the death penalty . this morning, martin o'malley signed senate bill 76 which abolished the death penalty in his state making maryland the 18th state in the country without the death penalty . since his exoneration, kirk has been on a mission to repeal the death penalty by telling his own story.
>> at the time, i was married. i was newly married. i was 22 years old, never been arrested before, discharged marine, went to a christian high school . i don't pretend to purport i was an angel but i certainly knew what i wasn't and that was a child killer . my mother passed away before the result results even. this was in january of 1993 . and she died of a massive heart attack when i was in prison. i was allowed to see her before before -- for five minutes in handcuffs and shackles and i went back to prison. not the dna evidence that cleared kirk back in the earl ly 1990s , a scientific break through changed the way we think of dna evidence . it made it clear some like kirk were not guilty of the crimes they had been sentenced to death. that began to give many states pause and another giving states reason to reconsider their execution practices is theory shall equation of capital punishment . back in 1999 , then maryland governor commissioned this study to factor how they were factored to death and the study found a vicious alchemy and the race of the assailant and race of the victim that made a big difference. when the victim is black this man, wesley eugene baker died at the hands of the state, 2005 , more than seven years ago. the reason no one has been executed in maryland for more than seven years before today 's official ban on capital punishment was signed into law? because maryland had a de facto ban on the death penalty that had nothing to do with dna evidence or study showing racial disparities in the way death is being handed out. the reason for the state's de facto ban on capital punishment was an obscure regulation. prison officials in maryland have come up with their own processes by which they put people to death and they were not signed off by the appropriate authorities. that is why maryland had to stop executing people in 2006 unofficially. when we talk about capital punishment in this country, we talk about the science or the race or guilt and innocence and oversight. rarely do we talk about whether or not we want to be a society that chooses to kill its own citizens for their crimes. only china, iran, iraq or saudi arabia put more of their citizens to death than we do. do we want to be in the company of those countries on this issue? if not, is maryland 's repeal of the death penalty a promising sign we could be moving the country in the right direction. joining us now is kirk , the first american inmate exonerated by evidence and now with an organization to empowering death penalty survivors. so nice to have you here tonight.
>> melissa , it's a pleasure to be here. a big day .
>> it is. your group on innocence is working on this appeal across the u.s. tell me how important the maryland victory is.
>> 28 years ago, i was sitting in a prison cell waiting to die for a crime i didn't commit. there's been 142 americans who have been found wrongfully convicted and witness to innocence has been showing these individuals for the last 10 years. our anniversary is coming up this october. i have to say since i got out in 1993 , it's just one right after another. honestly, we don't need to be executing our citizens like you say, because in fact, they are innocent people.
>> so it does feel to me like a lot of the argument, a lot of the momentum around abolishing the death penalty is about that, the idea of people like you for whom dna evidence shows that they are not guilty of those crimes. can we get to a point where we can make an argument even if someone is guilty of the crime, we don't believe the state should be putting them to death?
>> i think so. i mean, we've come a long way in this thing. dna has shown us that we have a ton of problems. you were talking about one of them earlier, the racial disparity in maryland , it's quite evident. i was on the commission as well. i sat there and was just flabbergasted by some of the stuff that i didn't know. you know, the way we do forensic sciences. racial disparity, jurisdictional disparity, you name it. it comes down to it, melissa , that the death penalty is a failed policy. it hasn't deterred anybody and certainly hasn't detected a soul since it's been enacted.
>> it's also an expensive policy. i was just talking to the governor of rhode island about the merits and economic arguments. is there an economic argument to a state for abolishing the death penalty ?
>> absolutely. the state of california for example just spent -- had a 725 people on death row , billions of dollars in up front costs. maryland , we found the same thing. about $3 million more to execute a person and put him in prison for life or life without parole. i think we have found this practice is expensive and for witness to innocence, and people like myself, the worst thing that could happen and the most expensive is the execution of an innocent person.
>> absolutely. kirk bloodsworth , thank you for your advocacy and joining us tonight and enjoy this night, which is a big win for you.
>> i will indeed, melissa . thank you.
>>> at the new george w. bush library in dallas, we get this version, verse from the president about the response to hurricane katrina . it is an incredible bit of self-written history and it's next. did i mention i live in
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