Injustice And Redemption In Picking Cotton By Jennifer Torneo

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption is a non-fiction book by activists Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton, with author Erin Torneo, first published in 2010. It tells the true story of Jennifer Thompson, a young woman who was violently raped in her apartment. She identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker and he was sent to prison. However, after eleven years, new DNA evidence conclusively proved he was innocent, and he was released. Two years later, Ronald and Jennifer met face to face to try to make sense of their mutual tragedy and formed an unlikely friendship that changed both their lives. Exploring themes of criminal justice, guilt, forgiveness, and redemption, Picking Cotton has been widely praised as a compelling

She was a highly ambitious young woman determined to carry out the plan she had for her life. She maintained straight A’s and planned to graduate with a perfect GPA and then marry her boyfriend Paul. However, her life as she knew it came to an end when on July 29th, 1984, she woke up to find a stranger in her room. The unidentified man proceeded to hold a knife to her throat and brutally rape her. Despite her panic, she tried to stay as calm as possible with the intention of trying to remember as many details about her attacker as she could. Eventually, she was able to escape and went to the police, where she gave them all the information she had to bring her attacker to justice. The police department presented her with a handful of suspects that were already identified from past encounters. She picked out the one she recognized the most, a man named Ronald Cotton who had an extensive criminal record. The police were already suspicious of him, and her identification was all the evidence they

Without the advice of a lawyer, he went to the station to try to clear up what he was sure was a misunderstanding. Instead, the police arrested him without ever hearing his side of the story. They had their suspect and weren’t interested in looking for other options. Cotton was quickly found guilty at trial, and on January 18th, 1985 he was sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years on the charges of first-degree breaking and entering and first-degree sexual assault. Cotton was a deeply religious man, and his deep faith in God and determination that he would be found innocent one day kept him sane in prison. However, his time in prison was hard and he was frequently transferred from prison to prison, sometimes spending extended periods in solitary confinement. While imprisoned, he met a fellow inmate named Bobby Poole who was in jail on similar charges. There was an uncanny resemblance between them, and Cotton requested that they be brought back to court so Jennifer could potentially name Poole as her attacker. However, Jennifer once again named Ronald as her rapist, and now so did the woman who accused Poole initially. This resulted in another life sentence being tacked on to Ronald’s