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Ronald cotton 60 minutes

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The Perfect Witness

By HELEN O’NEILL
Associated Press

When the worst hap­pened, she fought back by mem­o­riz­ing her assailan­t’s face. That pow­er­ful tes­ti­mo­ny sent a man to prison for 11 years. Unfortunately, it was the wrong man.

BURLINGTON, N.C. — Jennifer Thompson was the per­fect stu­dent, per­fect daugh­ter, per­fect home­com­ing queen. And when her per­fect world was ripped apart, the petite blonde with the dark, expres­sive eyes became some­thing she could nev­er have imagined.

The per­fect witness.

Police had nev­er seen a vic­tim so com­posed, so deter­mined, so sure.

Just hours after her ordeal, after a jad­ed doc­tor swabbed her for semen sam­ples in a hos­pi­tal, she sat in a police sta­tion with Detective Mike Gauldin, comb­ing through pho­tos, work­ing up a composite.She picked out his eye­brows, his nose, his pen­cil-thin mus­tache. She picked out his photo.

A week lat­er, she sat across a table from six men hold­ing num­bered cards. There was no one-way mir­ror to s

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Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

The New York Times best selling true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the man she incorrectly identified as her rapist and sent to prison for 11 years.

Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars.

After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives.

With Picking Cotton, Jennifer and Ronald tell in their own words the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing po

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Ronald Cotton

The Crime

In July 1984, an assailant broke into Jennifer Thompson-Cannino’s apartment and sexually assaulted her. Later that night, the assailant broke into another apartment and sexually assaulted a second woman.

The evidence at trial included a flashlight found in Mr. Cotton’s home that resembled one used by the assailant and rubber from Mr. Cotton’s shoe that was consistent with rubber found at one of the crime scenes, but overwhelmingly the evidence rested on the identification and the flawed eyewitness identification procedures used by police at the time.

In January 1985, Mr. Cotton was convicted by a jury of one count of rape and one count of burglary. In a second trial, in November 1987, Mr. Cotton was convicted of both rapes and two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 54 years.

The Exoneration

Mr. Cotton was unsuccessful overturning his conviction in several appeals. But in the spring of 1995, his case was given a major break: the Burlington Police Department turned over all evidence, which included the assailant’s semen for

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