Ronald Cotton Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness testimony is sent to sensory memory whereby it involves retaining information and details. In order to recall specific features of a person, the victim must be very observant and concentrate during the event and after when trying to remember these details. This can be transferred to short-term memory, which has the capacity of remembering 7±2 memories, and if subjects rehearse what they have seen then the memory can be stored in long-term memory. Memories can then be retrieved when needed for testimony.

The case of Ronald Cotton is a well-known example of an eyewitness testimony resulting to false convictions. On the 29th of July in 1984, Jennifer Thompson had a man break into her house and she was then sexually assaulted. The

He then committed the same crime to another woman 1 mile away from her home, that night. Ronald cotton worked near the scene of both rapes and had a criminal record for sexual assault as a teenager and breaking and entering. When Ron gave his alibi he accidently had his weekends confused giving the detective an idea that he was lying. Both on photo and physical line up, Jennifer had chosen Ron Cotton and evidence of clothes and foam from his shoes added to the testimony. Ron was charged with rape and burglary and the sentence given was life plus 54 years. He was convicted in 1985 and 1987 and was sent to North Carolina central prison at 22 years old. When a man named Bobby Poole arrived at the prison, Ron found out that they were from the same place so he asked Bobby if he committed this crime as he said he was falsely accused. Bobby said no however other evidence of the kitchen staff had been mistaking Cotton for Poole and vise versa all the time. Cotton then found out that Poole was sentenced to prison due to rape and eventually found out through other prisoners that he had admitted to raping Jennifer Thompson and the other woman. Ron asked for an appeal

He says that when a suspect is not in a line up, witnesses will tend to pick the most similar to the criminal. The two key properties of eyewitness testimony is that it is often unreliable and highly persuasive. Recognition memory is rapid so if someone takes longer than 10-15 secs then they are not using reliable recognition memory. Showing a photo one by one is more effective and accurate as it allows the victim to compare each photo to their memory rather than each other. A study person was undertaking whereby 300 participants viewed deliberately shaky footage of a man putting a bomb down an airshaft. They then have to single out who the perpetrator was even though it was one of