Book Review Of Picking Cotton By Jennifer Cannino

Putting Yourself in Cotton’s Shoes: The Importance of Scientifically Reliable Evidence

The book Picking Cotton written by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and R. Cotton with E. Torneo is a collaborated memoir of a survivor of a brutal rape crime who suffered from a long post-traumatic stress disorder and the man she wrongly identified and sent to prison for 11 years for the crime that he did not commit. The memoir illustrates the painful tragedy of the victims - Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton, from one rape crime and a faulty criminal process and how they learned to forgive and recovered from their past becoming friends and later come to work together to fight for the same cause.

When I first read this book the story didn't spark my interest,

The day after I finished the book without any enthusiasm, I attended one of the common read event called "An Overview of the Innocence Project and Innocence Work" held by a staff attorney with the Innocence Project, Karen Thompson. As mentioned briefly at the end of the book, the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing (Innocence Project 2015) origin from the project found by Richard Rosen, the law professor who helped Ron to win his freedom and were influenced by his case and the flow of letters from people in similar situation as Ron looking for a justice and seeing DNA technology as their last hope to clear their name. The presentation was quite informative and interesting, I learned the actual definition of scientific evidence - what can be considered as an actual scientific evidence or cannot be used as a scientific evidence and how it helped and continue to free many innocent people who are wrongly convicted. After the introduction and some more information on imperfection in criminal justice system and the investigation process, the audience - including me, were asked to watch a short clip as an exercise. Right away I knew she would ask us a question regarding the clip that related to false memory from the book, so I made sure to memorize every little detail trying hard not to miss anything. And the question followed was exactly what I was expected, I was beaming with confidence. I KNEW exactly who I needed to pick, just like how Jennifer was able to pick Cotton right away during the lineup. When we were asked to raise the hand for an answer and saw that a lot of people thought the same, my confidence grew, and I waited impatiently for her to announced the correct answer. Then I was struck by the result. There was no right answer from the option given, then it got me, in dismay, I realized