The Wrongful Conviction of Ronald Cotton
In July of 1984, a man broke into the apartment of Jennifer Thompson in Burlington, North Carolina, and raped her at knifepoint. During the attack, the perpetrator uttered a threat that became forever imprinted in the mind of Thompson. This threat would eventually lead to the arrest and conviction of one Ronald Cotton who was picked out from a line-up, in part, by the sound of his voice. Ronald Cotton would go on to serve 11 years for the crime until a chance meeting with another prisoner would give Cotton the legal grounding he needed to finally appeal the conviction. It also helped bring problems with eyewitness testimony, and the wrongful convictions of innocent people, into the national conversation about the criminal justice system. Why is it so easy to be fooled by what we think we see and hear? How do our false perceptions lead to the convictions of innocent people? What are the psychological consequences of being falsely accused and imprisoned?