Victims’ story ultimately about forgiveness

Sexual assault, faulty identification and a forgiving heart played into an unlikely friendship between two victims who shared their story with an audience at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St.

On Oct. 27 speakers Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton, sponsored by Midwestern Innocence Project, told their side of a story, in which Thompson unwittingly provided faulty eyewitness identification that sent Ronald Cotton to prison for 11 years for a rape he did not commit.

Thompson described her college life in Burlington, N.C., as ideal. She had a 4.0 grade-point average and several part-time jobs.

“It was perfect,” she said. “July 29, 1984, at 3 a.m., it all changed.”

Thompson told a gripping account of the night she was raped and consequences that followed. To save her life and put the perpetrator behind bars, she memorized his features, escaped out the back door, and identified Cotton through a police composite, photo identification and line-up of seven suspects.

The jury convicted Cotton, though he maintained his innocence, and sentenced him to more than 50 years in prison, largely due to Thompson’s identification.

“We toasted the system,” she said. “It worked.”

Cotton received a double sentence as the result of second trial where Bobby Poole, an inmate in Cotton’s prison, was introduced and dismissed as Thompson’s perpetrator. Again, based on her eye witness account, she positively identified Ronald Cotton as her rapist.

In 1995, Cotton pursued a third trial, this time with DNA evidence. He was found innocent and released from prison. Shocked, Thompson said she let down the Police Department, the District Attorney’s Office, Cotton and the seven other women Poole raped.

“I was scared,” Thompson said. “My life had become paralyzed.”

Several years after Cotton’s exoneration, Thompson and Cotton met. Cotton forgave her and wished her a happy life. But their two-hour talk evolved into a friendship that inspired them to write a book about their story, raise awareness of faulty identification and promote reliable methods of identifying suspects.

“We travel the world doing what we do,” Cotton said.

Vivien Jennings, owner of Rainy Day Books, Fairway, partnered with Midwestern Innocence Project to sell “Picking Cotton,” the book co-authored by Thompson and Cotton.

“They so connected to the audience. They were so real,” Jennings said. “It was the human side of a tragedy.”

Founded in 2001, Midwestern Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization, provides pro bono legal and investigative services to the innocent in prison in six states.

Jay Swearingen, executive director, said the organization reviews six to 10 letters from prisoners on a weekly basis. He said the justice system averages a 1 percent to 5 percent failure rate. With Missouri’s 300,000 inmates, a failure rate of just 1 percent translates to 300 innocent prisoners.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Swearingen said.

Sean O’Brien, Midwestern Innocence Project board member and University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor, introduced Thompson and Cotton. O’Brien’s cases include the 1995 Schulp v. Delo, which preserves the right of habeas corpus review for innocent prisoners.

“Their story is an amazing window into the criminal system,” Obrien said.

He said many victims refuse to believe DNA evidence. He said Thompson showed strength of character moving beyond her eyewitness account and Cotton demonstrated the ability to let go of his anger.

“He forgave her,” O’Brien said. “He empowered her to be happy.”

O’Brien said identi-kits used for composition sketches, coupled with photo and suspect line-ups administered by well-intentioned police forces remain innately flawed.

“It’s a formula to changing human memory to match the suspect,” he said. “Memory is polluted just by trying to extract it.”

O’Brien said he would like police departments to implement double blind testimonies and use a different officer than the arresting officer to execute photo and line-up identification. O’Brien said changing protocol takes more than altering police techniques.

“It takes a village to exonerate an innocent person,” he said.

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