Summary of Picking Cotton Picking Cotton described the story of a rape victim, Jennifer Thompson, who mistakenly picked Ronald Cotton from a photo lineup and then a live lineup as her assailant. Jennifer had earlier assisted police with an Identi-Kit composite sketch that she had felt was not quite accurate but was put out to the public through local news channels to help identify any possible suspects. Ronald Cotton was a name given to police as a possibility. Her perspective of the identification process is one of self- pressure to choose the right suspect; and the trust that the police had the right suspect. She described feeling that it was up to her to choose the right suspect. There was very little corroborating evidence
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First, the two rapes that Cotton was initially convicted of involved a black man raping two white women. The announcement that a black man had raped a white woman and then after being chased by police raped a second woman “didn’t sit well with the community” (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton, & Torneo (2010, p.30). This placed a high degree of pressure on the Burlington Police Department to arrest and convict the man who committed these crimes. The detectives who worked on the case likely had pressure from their administration to solve the case as soon as possible. Second, the identification of a member of a different race or ethnicity can be more difficult then identifying someone of the same race as the witness/victim. “Research has also indicated that people are better able to recognize faces of their own race or ethnic group than faces of another race or ethnic group” (Schuster, 2007, para 9). Third, Mary Reynolds testified that she was intimidated by being in the room with seven black men at the live lineup. Jennifer did not mention this but was likely somewhat influenced by the fact she had been raped by a man from a different race and may have been prejudiced prior to the attack. There is also the possibility that any of the investigators, the prosecutor or the judge were prejudiced against blacks leading to a hasty investigation and ultimately the judge’s choice to exclude certain evidence …show more content…
Based upon what we know today, there was too much emphasis on Jennifer’s selection from the photo lineup and then the live lineup. Today photo lineup should contain six or more separate photos to be shown to a witness individually so they do not compare each to the others. The photo lineup should be shown by an officer that does not know which one is the suspect and the witness should not be told she picked the right one. Am officer who knows which photo is the right one may give verbal or physical cues as to which is the one they suspect. An example might be follow up questions or statements when a witness picks one of the photos that are just fillers in the lineup that encourages the witness to look at the others as being “right”. After picking the photo of Cotton it is obvious that Jennifer would then pick Cotton in the live lineup based on the photo not her memory. Her confidence was then strengthened in identifying the person who raped her which would in turn affect her testimony in the trial. The police should have been concerned by the fact Jennifer narrowed the photo lineup down to two before picking Ronald Cotton. During the live lineup she narrowed it down to two different males, numbers four and five. She ended up picking number five which was Ronald Cotton. Mary Reynolds had picked number 4 which was not a suspect. This
First, the two rapes that Cotton was initially convicted of involved a black man raping two white women. The announcement that a black man had raped a white woman and then after being chased by police raped a second woman “didn’t sit well with the community” (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton, & Torneo (2010, p.30). This placed a high degree of pressure on the Burlington Police Department to arrest and convict the man who committed these crimes. The detectives who worked on the case likely had pressure from their administration to solve the case as soon as possible. Second, the identification of a member of a different race or ethnicity can be more difficult then identifying someone of the same race as the witness/victim. “Research has also indicated that people are better able to recognize faces of their own race or ethnic group than faces of another race or ethnic group” (Schuster, 2007, para 9). Third, Mary Reynolds testified that she was intimidated by being in the room with seven black men at the live lineup. Jennifer did not mention this but was likely somewhat influenced by the fact she had been raped by a man from a different race and may have been prejudiced prior to the attack. There is also the possibility that any of the investigators, the prosecutor or the judge were prejudiced against blacks leading to a hasty investigation and ultimately the judge’s choice to exclude certain evidence …show more content…
Based upon what we know today, there was too much emphasis on Jennifer’s selection from the photo lineup and then the live lineup. Today photo lineup should contain six or more separate photos to be shown to a witness individually so they do not compare each to the others. The photo lineup should be shown by an officer that does not know which one is the suspect and the witness should not be told she picked the right one. Am officer who knows which photo is the right one may give verbal or physical cues as to which is the one they suspect. An example might be follow up questions or statements when a witness picks one of the photos that are just fillers in the lineup that encourages the witness to look at the others as being “right”. After picking the photo of Cotton it is obvious that Jennifer would then pick Cotton in the live lineup based on the photo not her memory. Her confidence was then strengthened in identifying the person who raped her which would in turn affect her testimony in the trial. The police should have been concerned by the fact Jennifer narrowed the photo lineup down to two before picking Ronald Cotton. During the live lineup she narrowed it down to two different males, numbers four and five. She ended up picking number five which was Ronald Cotton. Mary Reynolds had picked number 4 which was not a suspect. This