Ronald Cotton Case Study

During spring break one of the captain of the lacrosse team decided to throw a party and have two strippers there. One which was Crystal Mangum who has a mental problem and did not feel like preforming due to maybe the combination of alcohol and drugs. The party turned ugly and some people left and Kim Roberts the second dancer called the police to come and take her home or somewhere for help. The nurse asked if she was rape and the answer was yes for Crystal that knew the system well. The group of 88 of Duke facility had unequivocally asserted that something had happened to Crystal. This quickly turned into a racial motivated crime led by Mike Nifong. The lacrosse coach was forced to resign and the remained season had to be canceled due to the accusations.

In July 1984 Jennifer Thompson, a 22-year old white woman, was raped by a black man in her apartment. A man named Ronald Cotton was arrested and identified by Thompson in a line-up and a phot-spread. According to her interview with CBS’s 60 minutes in 1999, Thompson explained how she was confident in her identification. In 1985, Cotton’s conviction of raping Thompson was based largely on her identification. While in prison, two years later, a fellow inmate of Cotton confessed to the rape of Jennifer Thompson. However, it wasn’t until 1995 when DNA showed that Ronald Cotton was innocent. According to the Innocence Project, Ronald Cotton spent 10 years in prison before being exonerated.

"The Power of Situations”, by Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett, explains to the reader that the way humans respond to a situation is looked at wrong by most individuals. The authors tell how most people look at the wrong side of situations. On most occasions people look to see who the situation is happening to, instead of focusing on the situation itself and the proper responses that one would expect to see. The information in this passage would be most relevant to a student pursuing a psychology degree. Although, it could be read with purpose by anyone with interests in psychology. The authors provide accurate and significant information, while giving a great interpretation for the reader to understand.

Good friend, W. (2012, December 4). Amnesia in '50 First Dates ' Retrieved July 21, 2016, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-movies/201212/amnesia-in-50-first-dates

Ronald Cotton was sentenced to jail in 1995, after serving ten years for a crime he didn’t even commit. Eye witnesses are considered to be the best form of evidence in an unsolved case. Mr. Cotton was convicted primarily by an eyewitness named Jennifer Thomson-Cannino, who was sure she identified the right male. Years go by and the case was re-ruled and the jury ruled Jennifer 's description as a misidentification. The way the human brain works is marvelous, but often people alter the reality of a situation making false accusations and statements.

“The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.” The mission of the Innocence Project is to exonerate people who they believe don’t belong in jail and aren’t guilty of the crime they were convicted for. People write to them asking for them to investigate on difference cases and they will evaluate potential cases by gathering information about each case application and see if they can determine whether DNA testing can be conducted.

The study of slavery in the southern half of the United States prior to the Civil War examines the institution in a capitalistic sense, choosing to see the punishment of slaves as unlikely due to the paternalistic relationship that allegedly existed between slaves and their masters. Recently, historiographical texts, such as River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom by Walter Johnson, have taken up the mantle of disproving this. In his introduction, Johnson describes the institution of slavery as such: "The Cotton Kingdom was built out of sun, water, and soil; animal energy, human labor, and mother wit; grain, flesh, and cotton; pain, hunger, and fatigue; blood, milk, semen, and shit." In regards to the title of his book, Johnson asserts that the importance of slavery in terms of economic history did not lie with Massachusetts, but along the Mississippi River, additionally dismantling prior historiography surrounding slavery. Serving as the major thesis of his book, Johnson convincingly and ambitiously argues that slaves labored, resisted, and reproduced in the Mississippi Valley Region, and it was the response by southerners to material limitations, such as land degradation, in this region that slaveholders increasingly projected their power onto

Thompson-Cannino, Jennifer, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo. Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2010.

Background: On January 23, 1906, Nevada Taylor was walking home from her bookkeeping job in Chattanooga to her small home in Forest Hills Cemetery, where she lived with her father, the groundskeeper (Pfeifer, “United”; “Shipp”). Before Nevada even entered the cemetery grounds, a man, who she later described to have a “soft, kind voice,” grabbed her (Pfeifer, “United”). He threateningly said, “If you scream, I will kill you” (Pfeifer, “United”). Then, everything went black for Nevada (Pfeifer, “United”). When she awoke, she immediately reported what had happened to her father (Pfeifer, “United”). Sheriff Joseph Shipp was summoned to the house, along with a doctor (Pfeifer, “United”). After examination of Nevada, the doctor verified that she had been

If it wasn’t for DNA, Ronald Cotton would been convicted and locked up for a crime he didn’t do. The case against Ronald Cotton was one of many that involved African Americans, for there were approximately 200 African Americans who were exonerated after spending an average of 14 years in a correctional facility (“DNA Exonerations Nationwide,” 2016).

Why are people always convicted on something they only have circumstantial evidence on? I believe that there is many more ways for a jury to find out if a person is guilty or not and circumstantial evidence is one of the main things they use. Most of the time people get blamed for something they didn’t do and they don’t even have all the evidence to prove that one is guilty. So then they end up going to jail for a crime they did not commit.

Thompson-Cannino, Jennifer, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo. "Chapter 10." Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption. New York: St. Martin's, 2009. 171. Print.

If she was given the mug shots one at a time and only for a brief instance, then she would have never picked Ronald (Lindsay & Wells, 1985). It is logical to believe the picking of Ronald’s mug shot created a snowball effect to all the other mistakes in the process. If this case happened today, there would have never been a false memory problem, because the DNA would have proven innocence and guilt from the beginning. In all the cases that rely on eyewitness testimony and do not have DNA to fall back on, brief mug shot exposure would be a viable solution to keep human memory from failing. I do believe there is one major flaw with this solution; the longer the memory is stored the less accurate the memory becomes (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). So, placing the sketch and the correct mug shot in front of the eyewitness is crucial for the identification to be

Wrongful convictions are one of the most worrisome and tragic downsides to the Canadian Criminal Justice System. As stated by Campbell & Denov (2016). “cases of wrongful convictions in Canada call into question the ability of our criminal justice system to distinguish between the guilty and innocence” (p. 226). In addition, wrongful convictions can have devastating repercussions on the person, who was found guilty, effecting their personal/public identities, beliefs and family lives. This essay will be examine some of the common factors that apply to the conviction of an innocence person. Also, whether the CJS is doing enough to inhibit wrongful convictions and finally, the problems that parole can cause for a person maintaining their innocence.

An eyewitness testimony is a legal term used to describe a personal account of details that occurred during a crime, such as a robbery or murder. They would have to give a description of the event, like the race of the perpetrator, what items were stolen, the time of day, etc. While these testimonials are helpful, many people are calling into question the accuracy of these statements.