Review on Case of Ronald Cotton

In 1984, two sets of crimes occurred when a person broke into an apartment, destroyed phone wires, raped a woman and stole her money and belongings. One victim was Jennifer Thompson, who claims that during the attack she studied the attacker’s face to identify him if she survived the attack. In the investigation, Jennifer was certain and chose Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald Cotton was arrested for the rapes and burglary in January 1985. The court sentenced him to life and 54 years.
His family members supported Cotton’s alibi but the jury couldn’t hear evidence that the second victim failed to pick Cotton out of either a photo or police lineup. So, Ronald Cotton was arrested for photo identification and police lineup identification made by one victim and the matching of rubber from Cotton’s shoes to rubber found at one crime scene.
In November 1987, Cotton was retried for both rapes but the second victim decided that he was the attacker. Before the trial, a man in prison called Bobby Poole claimed that he was the one who committed Cotton’s crimes, the court refused to allow this information into trial.
DNA testing proved that sample from one of the victim’s DNA didn’t match to Cotton. So, this showed the court that the attacker was not Ronald Cotton but Bobby Poole who had earlier confessed to the crime. Cotton was officially free from all charges on June 30, 1995.

"I was certain, but I was dead wrong" - Jennifer Thompson

False memory of Jennifer Thompson can be said that her memory of the attacker, Bobby Poole wasn’t reliable to be used as evidence. When Jennifer Thompson saw the photos that the police provided, Thompson probably didn’t have certain idea who her attacker was. She was filled with anger and desire to find her attacker and when she saw Ronald Cotton, she picked him because his facial features were similar to that of Bobby Poole. From this, her memory of attacker modified and adjusted to the picture of Ronald Cotton. When she saw the physical lineup, she picked Ronald Cotton again because by then her memory allowed her to be certainly sure that her attacker was Cotton.
This can be understood because identifying people from other race, ethnicity and nationality is a challenge to people because they are not accustomed to other faces.

Since this occurrence, Jennifer Thompson worked for eyewitness testimony reform because she is now aware that memory can be changed, modified, matched and adjusted. As it is malleable, memories become unclear and vague over time and it can change according to new information and experiences, so eyewitness testimony is not the best evidence that the court could use. So, my conclusion is that this kind of evidence is not useful, reliable, and trustworthy. The way it is used should change, for example, the witness don’t have to have a view of the pictures all at once but shown a picture one by one so that they just say “yes” or “no”. This way, the memory of the witness wouldn't be affected; it will stay neutral.