ipl-logo

Ronald Cotton Case Study

598 Words3 Pages

The Ronald Cotton case is a primary example of an innocent citizen being sentenced to jail by a mistaken eyewitness testimony. The reliability of eyewitness testimonies to what actually occurred is slim. With the help of the justice system, Ronald Cotton was released and compensated, and the number of cases of mistaken eyewitness testimonies decreased. In July of 1984, an attacker entered the apartment of Jennifer Thompson and proceeded to rape and rob her. In January of 1985, Ronald Cotton was convicted for both the rape and the burglary. He was sentenced to life plus fifty-four years. The evidence presented in the case was a major factor in his prosecution. A photo identification was made by one of the victims along with a police identification …show more content…

Thompson herself said, "I was just trying to pay attention to a detail, so that if I survived... I'd be able to help the police catch him." She identified Cotton in a photo lineup as well as in a live lineup and she was one hundred percent sure that Ronald Cotton was her attacker ("Ronald Cotton - Innocence Project." Innocence Project RSS. 2016 Innocence Project., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.). Without her faulty testimony, Cotton wouldn't have been exonerated on June 30th, 1995 or serve ten years in …show more content…

The inaccuracy of her testimony and the faultiness of the procedures in gathering the eyewitness testimony make this case one of the most known. The first factor is race. Studies have proven that opposite races have difficult times identifying the other race (Finkelstein, Shari. "Eyewitness: Anatomy Of A Story." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 11 Mar. 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.). Jennifer Thompson was white while her attacker was African American. The second piece is gender; females are better at identifying females and the same applies to males. It's due to the familiarities of the features that one looks at everyday that can be applied when identifying. Procedural reforms have been completed to improve eyewitness reliability but no matter what there is always going to be room for error. It's human nature to make mistakes and when people experience these crimes it's not always their fault if they can't identify their assailant one hundred percent correctly. If only cameras were around at every corner to catch these people. Mistaken eyewitness testimonies happen pretty frequently, but the Ronald Cotton case received a lot of publicity at the time. This case is only one of many where an innocent person was sent to jail. Authorities can't solely rely on eyewitness testimonies due to the faultiness, but with

Show More
Related
1139 Words | 5 Pages

Eyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many

Read More
691 Words | 3 Pages

  It was 6:20 am when she noticed a man dressed in black walking towards her. She was scared and did not know what to do. He grabbed her and hit her before dragging her and assaulting her.   She could not see his face, but noticed he was an African-American man. Zilinger said she  was terrified

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.

Read More
1620 Words | 7 Pages

The eyewitness was Kenny an inmate in prison with Ronald, who unfortunately choked on the stand when questioned about what he knew. So unfortunately for Ronald, Kenny wasn’t his key to being released from prison for the crime he hadn’t committed. Ronald got new lawyers in 1992 A man by the name or Mr. Rich, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, who was interested in looking into Ronald’s case, Ronald weighed the pros and cons and in the end agreed to let someone else taking a chance at handling his case. It wasn’t until 1994 that the most significant piece of evidence came into play. It was in 1994 that the OJ Simpson case started it was also one of the first instances of DNA being used as evidence in a case.

Read More
511 Words | 3 Pages

Timothy Cole After being raped while held at knifepoint, Michele Mallin was able to identify Timothy Cole twice. The first time being a polaroid, where Timothy Cole was facing forward while the mugshots of the other photos were facing to the side; the second time she identified Cole was in a lineup. With absolute certainty on Mallin’s part, Mallin picked out Timothy Cole as her attacker and rapist in both instances. In court, a forensic examiner presented Mallin’s rape kit data from the hospital post attack.

Read More
1428 Words | 6 Pages

Effects of post identification feedback on eyewitness identification and nonidentification confidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 334–346. Lindsay, R., & Wells, G. (1985). Improving eyewitness identification from lineups: Simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 556–564.

Read More
823 Words | 4 Pages

In recent years, two executions in the U.S have generated a great deal of publicity. One of these executions included Troy Davis, convicted and executed for the murder of a police officer in 1989. Another crime in 1989 led to the conviction and execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer, in which Brewer dragged a man by the name of James Byrd to death. Even though the motives and situations of the two crimes were extremely different, the sentence for the two men were the same: death. These sentencings generated a great deal of publicity.

Read More
1052 Words | 5 Pages

Eyewitness Testimony What would you do if you were a juror in a court room during a trial? Outside is a beautiful calm day where the sky was blue and the grass was green, but inside there was nothing but blood and tears and you had a serious decision to make. You stood in the front of the room, sweat on your forehead and knees buckled. On one side you have a loyal, non criminal alibis that states that this man was not at the scene of the crime, but on the other side you have an amazing, truly honorable, eyewitness that believes whole heartedly that the suspect on the other side of the room is, of course, the thief.

Read More
538 Words | 3 Pages

The thing that caught my eye on this Article was how many people are relied on for their testamony in a trial. The reason i chose this is becasue I have done a research of my own about how the system and wronful convictions based on that one eyewitness. I wanted to read it to see what others had to say. Several have been convicted of crimes that they did not do because an eyewitness stated that they were the one that did it. They seen it happen.

Read More
301 Words | 2 Pages

There are many factors that contribute to a wrongful conviction. Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest cause. The mind is not a tape recorder; it does not record events exactly as it’s seen. Sometimes the witness or victim would choose the wrong person at photo arrays and lineups. The memory of a witness in a crime scene is like any other evidence it must be preserved carefully.

Read More
1431 Words | 6 Pages

1. How do state and local agencies maintain the integrity and overcome the problem that digital photography can be manipulated? Even though it is possible or photographs be manipulated state and local agencies have devised two ways to overcome a challenge photograph manipulation. First cameras can be purchased that are designed to create a file that cannot easily be manipulated without destroying the file.

Read More
133 Words | 1 Pages

There are many reasons for wrongful convictions, in the cases of Ronald Cotton, Christopher Abernathy, and Marvin Anderson, the main evidence that led up to their convictions were eyewitness testimonies. It is sad that people waste so many years of their lives due to false misconstrued information. Therefore, eyewitness testimonies should not be sufficient evidence to make a case. Fortunately, there have been innocent people exonerated and released from prison thanks to DNA testing. People should be cautious when making an eyewitness testimony, they should make sure that they are 100% sure that they are picking the right person.

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

Aamisha Kini Ms. Taylor AP Psychology: Period 6 2/15/18 Yuhwa Han. (2017). The Misinformation Effect and the Type of Misinformation: Objects and the Temporal Structure of an Episode. The American Journal of Psychology, 130(4), 467-476. doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.130.4.0467 In the article, it explains the misinformation effect and suggests that there is a relationship between the effect and temporal misinformation.

Read More
732 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the term mockingbird symbolizes innocence in a person. In the novel it focuses on the fact that innocence, represented by the mockingbird, can be wrongfully harmed. There are two characters: Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley that are supposed to represent the mockingbird. In the novel, Tom Robinson is the best example of a mockingbird because he is prosecuted for a crime he did not commit. Also, he was judged unfairly based on the color of his skin in his trial.

Read More
419 Words | 2 Pages

Eyewitness identifications can ruin the lives of innocent people and cause them to live their life behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit. Eye witness testimonies can be the deciding factor for a criminal trial, but the the reliability of the eye witness testimonies is not always as accurate as we assume. Although eyewitness identifications can be very beneficial in solving a case, there have been countless instances where the eyewitness identification has been incorrect due to multiple psychological factors. Memory is the most important aspect to eyewitness identifications because it is the sole tool for remembering details of a specific event, but memory is very complex and has many different aspects that can cause for unreliable

Read More

More about Ronald Cotton Case Study

Related Topics

Open Document