- 6 months ago
Jennifer Thompson recounts her brutal 1984 rape and how she has dealt with the exoneration, thanks to DNA evidence, of the man she mistakenly accused of the crime.
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00:00I remember feeling frightened, I remember feeling sick, but I also remember feeling just an overwhelming sense of just guilt.
00:30More than 12 years ago, as a 22-year-old college student, Jennifer Thompson became the victim of a brutal attack.
00:40I had determined in my mind, okay, I'm going to survive this, and when I do, I want this person to pay.
00:49I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to see him, but I had to see him.
00:55What Jennifer Thompson could not foresee was the tortuous journey through the American justice system that lay ahead for her and the man she saw that night.
01:06His bars were made of metal. My bars are emotional. My bars, I don't, I can't ever, I can't ever break them free.
01:17No one's going to ever hail me as someone who has survived 11 years of imprisonment. The table's turned.
01:28Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
01:43And by annual financial support from viewers like you.
01:46This is Frontline.
02:06It all began to unfold on a hot July night back in 1984,
02:11at the Brookwood Garden Apartments in Burlington, North Carolina.
02:21About 3 o'clock in the morning, I heard a noise.
02:25And I woke up.
02:28And when I asked who was there,
02:31the person jumped on me.
02:33And I was on my back.
02:34So he grabbed my arms and pinned them to the side of my head and put a knife to my throat.
02:39And I had screamed.
02:40And he told me that if I didn't shut up, he would kill me.
02:44And I was trying to see the face,
02:48thinking that maybe this was someone I knew, that this had to have been a joke, someone was playing on me.
02:54And when I realized that it wasn't,
02:55I thought maybe this was someone who had broken into my home to rob me.
03:03And I told him that he could take anything he wanted.
03:05He could have my money.
03:06He could have my credit card.
03:08And he told me he didn't want my money.
03:10And when I asked what he wanted,
03:13he proceeded to take off my underwear.
03:16And he went down and started performing oral sex on me.
03:22At that point, I realized that I was going to be raped.
03:27And I didn't know if this was going to be the end,
03:34if he was going to kill me, if he was going to hurt me.
03:38And I decided that what I needed to do was to outsmart him.
03:43Throughout the evening, I would turn on lights, even if it was just for a second,
03:50and he would tell me, turn that light off.
03:52At one point, he bent down and turned on my stereo,
03:56and a blue light came off of the stereo, and it shone right up to his face.
04:02And I was able to look at that.
04:05When I went into the bathroom, I shut the light on,
04:08and he immediately told me to shut it off.
04:10But it was just long enough for me to think,
04:14okay, his nose looks this way, or his shirt is navy blue, not black.
04:19Little brief pieces of light that I could piece together as much as I could piece together.
04:26When he came up and he started to try to kiss me,
04:29it enraged me, and it made me so sick on my stomach that I just turned my head.
04:37And he looked at me, and he called me baby, and I thought this had to be my moment.
04:43And I looked at him and I said,
04:44you know, if you would put your knife outside of my apartment,
04:49then I'll feel so much more at ease.
04:52And he fell for that, and he got off of me.
04:56But he didn't go outside of my apartment, he just dropped it outside my door and he came right back in.
05:00And so I had to rethink, well, now what am I going to do?
05:05So I said, I'm really thirsty, I need to get something to drink,
05:10which was in my kitchen at the back door.
05:13And when I went into the kitchen, I realized that's where he had come in,
05:16because the door was open.
05:17And I started to run water and throw ice cubes in my sink
05:22and open up cabinets and drawers, making as much noise as I could,
05:25and getting up enough courage to run.
05:28And that's when I opened up the door and I just took off out the door.
05:34So I went to a home that I saw that had a light on in their carport.
05:41I knocked on the door, I banged on the door, and a man came,
05:45and I told him I was screaming.
05:48I said, I've been raped by a black man, he's after me, please let me in.
05:53And the man screamed.
05:55He completely lost his composure.
05:57And his wife came around the corner, and she recognized me.
06:01She had been a professor at the college I was attending.
06:05And although she didn't actually know me, she'd seen me, and she said,
06:08I know her, she's a student at college, let her in.
06:12And they let me in, and that's when I lost my composure.
06:15I'd fainted.
06:21Jennifer Thompson was taken to the hospital where she met Detective Mike Golden,
06:26then a six-year veteran with an exemplary record.
06:30The principal concern initially is any medical needs that the victim may have
06:35that the physician can render.
06:38Then after that, the physician recovers necessary evidence that you hope to acquire
06:45that can help you with your sexual assault investigation.
06:50I had no idea that there's an entire kit they have to perform on you
06:54and take all kinds of samples and evidence and that kind of thing off of your body.
07:02They had to take, you know, hair combings and vaginal smears, and it was, I mean, it was very demeaning.
07:11The police were already searching the neighborhood, looking for Jennifer's assailant.
07:21The police department received a second call involving a lady who was heard screaming in a nearby neighborhood
07:30about maybe seven-tenths of a mile away on Ava Street.
07:33And as it turns out, this lady became a second rape victim of the perpetrator in this case.
07:41Mike Golden came in, and I heard a woman crying a few saws down from me,
07:48and I remember looking at him and saying, did she get raped also?
07:51And he said, yes, and we think it was the same person.
07:53And that was a horrible feeling, that he had hurt two women in one night.
08:02And I can remember just feeling so, so sorry for her,
08:08because I knew how much pain I was feeling, and I could only assume she was feeling the same amount.
08:17From the hospital, Jennifer was asked to go to police headquarters and give a statement.
08:23She was so determined during the course of the sexual assault to look at her assailant well,
08:31to study him well enough so that if given an opportunity later, she would be able to identify her assailant.
08:38There's literally pages of noses, and there's pages of eyes.
08:44And it can get very confusing, because all of a sudden you've seen 20 noses,
08:49and you're not really positive how the nostrils were.
08:54I had great confidence in her ability to identify her assailant.
08:59A lot of victims are so traumatized, so overcome with fear,
09:04during the course of the sexual assault itself, that it's unusual to find somebody that's capable of having that presence of mind.
09:12I was trying to keep my composure, to try to keep my memory straight.
09:17Um, at the same time I just, I didn't want, I didn't want to keep my composure.
09:23I wanted to lose my mind.
09:32For now, Mike Golden would have to rely on Jennifer's memory of the man who raped her to lead him to a suspect.
09:38His strategy was to publicize the composite sketch widely, in the hope that someone would recognize the rapist.
09:48Burlington police are looking for a black male in his late teens or early teens.
09:59A burst attack took place shortly after 4 a.m. at the Brookwood Garden.
10:02Less than an hour later, police responded to screams of another woman.
10:06Police believe the same person is responsible for both crimes.
10:08He has short hair and a pencil-type mustache.
10:14Anyone knowing anything about these crimes is encouraged to contact the Burlington police.
10:24The next day, Golden got his first break.
10:27An anonymous tip that a man named Ronald Cotton, who worked at Summer's Seafood, resembled the sketch.
10:34Of course, Summer's Seafood restaurant is in the same neighborhood of the, where both rapes occurred.
10:42And as a result of receiving that tip, we assigned a detective to do the background on Ronald Cotton.
10:49Ronald Cotton had a police record.
10:52When he was 16, he was convicted for attempting to rape a 14-year-old white girl he knew.
10:58He was now out on parole for a second conviction for breaking and entering.
11:04The owner at Summer's Seafood said Cotton was in the habit of touching the white waitresses and teasing them about sex,
11:11and that he owned a blue shirt similar to the one Jennifer saw on the night of the rape.
11:16His name, as well as five other persons, was mentioned to us.
11:23And, of course, it was from there that we constructed a photo spread involving all six of those individuals.
11:30The photos were your individual type of mug shots.
11:35It was not a book that you flipped through.
11:37It didn't have volumes.
11:39They couldn't look at me and say, he's in here.
11:41He's one of these guys.
11:42So he may, he may not be in here.
11:45Take your time.
11:46Think through it.
11:48And it didn't take me very long.
11:50It took me minutes to come to my conclusion.
11:54And then I chose the photo of Ronald Cotton.
12:01After I picked it out, they looked at me and they said, we thought this might be the one.
12:07Because he had had a prior conviction, the same, it was the same type of circumstances, sort of.
12:13Rich Rosen, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, has studied this case extensively.
12:24At first glance, this case seems to fit the mold of the archetypal Southern crime.
12:30It's a black man accused of raping two white women in a small Southern town.
12:35But the more we looked into it, the more it didn't seem to fit the archetype.
12:41The police had a description of a black man.
12:45They gave a photograph to the victim in a fair photographic lineup and she picked out Ronald Cotton.
12:52And then they went and tried to find evidence to support the identification.
12:59With Jennifer Thompson's ID and a search warrant, Mike Gaulden set out to find Ronald Cotton.
13:06I hit a knock on my door.
13:09And when I started toward the door, my door flew open and they come in on me.
13:14They reached and grabbed me, spinned me around.
13:16They threw me in the bed and pulled my hands behind my back and asked me, was I Cotton?
13:23And I said, yeah.
13:25And one officer said, well, Cotton, you under arrest.
13:28And then that's when the other officer reached and pulled my wallet out my back pocket and opened it up.
13:32And looked and seen that I was Calvin.
13:36And he said, we got the wrong one.
13:38He said, this is Calvin, his brother.
13:41And they turned around and they went back out and they went over to my mama's house.
13:47At his family's home, the police didn't find Ronald, but they did find evidence.
13:54I found under his bed a pair of black shoes like those described by both victims.
13:59We had recovered a piece of foam rubber at Jennifer Thompson's crime scene that appeared to have come from the inside of a shoe.
14:08In addition to that, I found also under the bed next to the shoes, a red flashlight, which was similar to a flashlight described by the second victim in these cases.
14:21I can see a police officer being excited when they find a piece of foam at the scene and then find that Ronald Cotton owns an athletic shoe, which is old and beat up and could have lost foam.
14:34Even though it is the foam could have come from any one of a thousand shoes in Alamance County, North Carolina, even though there's no further connection to the officer, it's one more little piece of proof that the victim was right.
14:49That Ronald Cotton, in fact, is the man who did the crime and that can help the prosecutor convict the person that the police officer believes is guilty.
15:02That afternoon, Ronald Cotton voluntarily walked into the police station and said he wanted to straighten this whole thing out.
15:11Cotton identified the shoes and flashlight as his, but told the police he hadn't done anything wrong.
15:19He said he was out with friends on the night in question.
15:24A number of detectives were signed to follow up on that alibi statement to contact the people who he said he came in contact with.
15:32And frankly, we were not able to confirm his alibi through those interviews.
15:37If you take the statement that Ronald Cotton gave us in conjunction with the evidence that we recovered from under his bed,
15:45the fact that Jennifer Thompson had identified him as her assailant, we felt very strongly that Ronald Cotton was the perpetrator of her rape.
15:54Well, I received a telephone call that I had been appointed to represent Ronald Cotton.
16:03Went to the jail and met with Mr. Cotton very briefly and went quickly then to the Burlington Police Department.
16:09We were brought into a large room and the room was divided with a table in the middle, not unlike this table.
16:19And the seven young African-American males were placed against the wall over here and held numbers in front of them.
16:27And then the victim, one at a time, was brought in to view the line-up.
16:33Each person was asked to step forward, say a phrase, do the Miss America turn, and then step back.
16:41They had to do the steps to the right, to the left, and then turn around, and then they were instructed to do a voice presentation to me.
16:50They had to say some of the lines that the rapist had said to me that night, so I could hear the voice, because the voice was a very distinct voice.
16:58At the end of the session, she says, it's between four and five. I'd like them to do it over again.
17:07And so four steps out and does it again. Five steps out, and she says, it's five. And five was Ronald Cotton.
17:17When I picked him out in the physical line-up, and I walked out of the room, they looked at me and he said, that's the same guy.
17:24I mean, that's the one you picked out in the photo. For me, that was a huge amount of relief.
17:30Not that I'd picked the photo, but that I was sure when I looked at the photo, that was him.
17:35And when I looked at the physical line-up, I was sure it was him. And again, as a credible witness, you had to have the two to go together.
17:43Jennifer leaves the room, and victim number two comes in. They do the same thing. She has a slightly different phrase.
17:50They say the phrase. They do the turn. She says, it's number four.
17:55Now, this was the same number four with whom Jennifer had trouble identifying.
18:02And then made the comment, did I get the right one?
18:05All rise. Oh, yes or yes or yes.
18:09The Honorable Criminal Superior Court for the County of Allomance is now open and setting for the Dispatch of Business.
18:14In January 1985, the Cotton case came to trial.
18:19Please be seated.
18:21The state had decided to prosecute him only for the rape of Jennifer Thompson,
18:25fearing that the second victim's failure to identify Cotton could jeopardize their whole case.
18:34Despite extensive forensic investigations, there was little physical evidence to introduce.
18:39No fingerprints, no hairs, and blood typing of semen samples that proved inconclusive.
18:46But the prosecutor felt that Jennifer Thompson alone would be far more convincing than any physical evidence he could offer.
18:53Jennifer had a very good rapport with the jury.
18:57When a question was asked, she would turn to the jury and explain to the jury what happened.
19:03And as she explained, it was almost as if she was taking the jurors back to when it happened.
19:11He had gone through my wallet while I was sleeping.
19:16And so by the time the rape actually occurred, he knew my name was Jennifer.
19:22He had robbed me. He had gone through private articles of mine.
19:28He completely violated me. In every way a person can be violated, I was violated.
19:34As I listened to Jennifer's testimony, I thought she was very, very brave.
19:44It had to be terrible for her to have to tell these people all these intimate things.
19:51And I think the part that really infuriated me the most was the fact that he scared her to death.
19:59The rape itself was bad enough and everything that he made her do was bad enough.
20:05But the fear that he instilled in her is what really made me the maddest.
20:14If the victim is somebody that the jurors can identify with and sympathize with,
20:21if the victim is really an innocent victim,
20:24then it's probably the most powerful testimony that could be presented in court.
20:29I mean, this is somebody who's been hurt, who's been brutalized,
20:32who sits there in front of the jury and ritualistically says,
20:35yes, I can identify the person who did this to me.
20:38He is sitting at council table. That is the man who hurt me so badly.
20:42It is incredibly powerful evidence.
20:45And jurors want to believe the victim.
20:48They identify with the victim.
20:50And especially when there is really no motive for the victim to lie,
20:54it is very hard evidence to overcome.
20:58To counter Jennifer's compelling testimony,
21:01the defense would argue that she had made a mistake,
21:04and Ronald Cotton was not even involved.
21:07But Phil Mosley knew it wouldn't be easy.
21:10There was eyewitness identification in the case,
21:14which lawyers know to be sometimes unreliable,
21:18but jurors and the general public think it's very reliable.
21:22There was a racial component in the case in that the victims were white,
21:28and the defendant was African-American.
21:31And Ronald Cotton had a prior record,
21:35which always colors a trial.
21:38And then there was the alibi.
21:41Cotton now said he'd gotten his dates mixed up
21:44and had given police the wrong information.
21:47He said he was actually home at his mother's house on the night of the rapes.
21:51His initial alibi to the police was that he had been with friends on that occasion,
21:57and named those friends.
21:59The law enforcement officers found that that wasn't correct for the time and place that they were asking about.
22:07Ronald's alibi to Mr. Monroe and myself initially was that he had been with his girlfriend at a motel on that occasion,
22:17and left and then went home.
22:19Then his alibi from his family was that he was asleep on the sofa in the living room
22:25as the family went in and out on that Friday night, Saturday morning.
22:30So there were three different alibis.
22:34Very uncomfortable situation for the defense.
22:37My sister, Tootie, she got up there,
22:39and she told him that, you know, that it wasn't him,
22:43that he didn't do the climb,
22:45which my sister Teresa told him the same thing,
22:49and my baby sister, Sheila,
22:52she told him the same thing,
22:54that he was there that night when it happened.
22:56She seen him laying in there on the chair.
22:58When Ronald Cotton's family got up to testify,
23:01they all said the same thing.
23:05You knew what the next one was going to say
23:08after about three or four of them had said that he was on the sofa.
23:13So that impressed me as that they had been rehearsed,
23:23like they had been told what to say.
23:25Well, to me, that would make one think that somebody is guilty.
23:29The defense felt its best argument was the second rape.
23:34Although Jennifer Thompson had identified Ronald Cotton,
23:37the second victim had identified number four,
23:40an innocent stand-in as the rapist.
23:45There was so much similarity between the conduct of the two cases,
23:50two crimes, that it was like leaving a fingerprint.
23:54And therefore, since Ronald Cotton did not do number two,
23:58he also did not do number one.
24:01Even though the police had linked both rapes to the same perpetrator,
24:05Cotton was only on trial for Jennifer's rape.
24:08So the judge denied Mosley's motion,
24:11and the jury never learned about the second rape that night.
24:14This was just an effort to create a collateral issue,
24:18to draw the jury's attention away from the real evidence,
24:22that is an eyewitness identification of Ronald Cotton in Jennifer's case.
24:29Jennifer thinks that she made a correct positive eyewitness identification.
24:35And the jurors evidently would believe that,
24:40unless we could attack that by showing how her memory could be honestly impaired.
24:47And that led me to find Dr. Reed Hunt at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
24:53People believe other people when they say they remember something.
24:58And if someone says, I remember, and they say that with great confidence,
25:03then that sort of statement is going to have an enormous impact on a jury, for example.
25:09For Professor Reed Hunt, challenging our confidence in memory has become a staple exercise of first year psychology classes,
25:20where students suddenly become witnesses to a mock crime.
25:24of his active...
25:27Why?
25:28Hey!
25:29Hey!
25:32If you ask people to give you some information about what they saw...
25:38How tall was this person?
25:405'6".
25:426'2".
25:435'9".
25:445'9".
25:45And a surprising amount of inaccuracy will occur under even those circumstances.
25:52He was light-toned black male.
25:54I had dark African-American.
25:56I thought he was white.
25:57She thought he was white.
26:00The class is then asked to pick the thief out of a photo lineup.
26:04How many of you thought number one?
26:08Look at what you wrote.
26:10You should have your selection written on your piece of paper.
26:14Although the class is largely divided between numbers three and five,
26:18only later are they told the real perpetrator's photo wasn't even included.
26:27This is the criminal who happens to be named Randy Evans.
26:31Phil Mosley's interest was very simply that I, as an expert,
26:38come and offer testimony that would allow the jury to at least hear of possibilities
26:46that confusions in memory do occur.
26:48Just exactly how tall are you?
26:50Six feet even.
26:51Six feet even.
26:53And to talk with the jurors about the importance of having
27:00these multiple lineups with Ronald Cotton as the only constant in those lineups,
27:07to point out to them that the situation indeed is one that we know
27:13will potentially induce confusion.
27:17But the judge ruled that Hunt had no expertise in this case,
27:21and that jurors should be guided by their common sense
27:24in judging the accuracy of Jennifer's memory.
27:27So the jury never really understood that the scientists know
27:33that human beings can make eyewitness identification,
27:36not falsely in the sense that it's a lie,
27:39but incorrectly because of unconscious transfer.
27:43They saw an event, number one.
27:46They've got another event, number two.
27:48And they used, number two, the photo line-up instead of the rape scene itself
27:54to make their selection in the physical line-up.
27:59During the eight days of trial, Ronald Cotton never testified.
28:04His lawyer feared that would allow prosecutors to introduce his criminal history.
28:09He had no change of emotions for eight days.
28:13He never changed his facial expression.
28:15This was extremely strange to me.
28:19And as time went by, I expected to see him react.
28:24And I never did.
28:25And so he seemed more guilty and guiltier and guiltier as time went by.
28:32The time went by.
28:39Ronald Cotton was convicted and sentenced to life
28:42at North Carolina's maximum security prison.
28:45I would approximately work out maybe three to four hours on the speed bag
28:54to relieve the frustration and tension that was building up in me
28:58from being incarcerated.
29:04I would be mad sometime during the day.
29:07By going down the ice, beating this bag, it helped me a lot.
29:12I prefer to do that than fight the other inmates.
29:27Cotton spent most of his nights writing letters to his lawyer
29:31and anyone else who might listen to his story.
29:33December 1, 1985.
29:38Mr. Moseley, I've been waiting patiently to hear from you before now.
29:44But I assume, being an attorney, you've been extremely busy.
29:48Well, it's going on a year that I've been incarcerated here at Central Prison.
29:53I haven't received any documents concerning my case,
29:56or much less know how things look on my behalf.
29:59Mr. Moseley had.
30:00Mr. Moseley, it's hell living here.
30:02September 8, 1986.
30:06Dear Mr. Moseley, sir, I'll agree I have indeed been highly frustrated
30:13by the fact of how things have been going concerning my case.
30:17This is though I'm left without anything to look forward to.
30:21I'm lost and don't know what's happening, but perhaps you can tell me.
30:25A year into his sentence, Cotton wrote to say he had found the man who had really raped the two women.
30:35September 30, 1986.
30:38Mr. Moseley.
30:40And there is no doubt in my mind that Bobby Poole did the crime I'm serving time for.
30:45I work in the kitchen here with him as well as sleep in the same dorm with him.
30:52Mr. Moseley, as I've said before, Poole is the one.
30:56I've enclosed a picture of Poole and me that was taken October 31, 1985.
31:04Maybe you could use it.
31:05And Cotton said other inmates were pointing the finger at Bobby Poole.
31:10Yeah, I knew Bobby Poole in the street.
31:13Okay, like I went to jail on a charge and we was in the same cell together.
31:18And we got to talking and he was telling me about the crimes that they had Ronald Cotton charged with.
31:27And he said he didn't do them.
31:30I'm saying, well, how do you know he didn't do them?
31:32He said, because I did.
31:34And I'm saying, well, why didn't you say something?
31:36So like I said, he's the type of guy that he didn't care either or.
31:39He was just waiting for a break.
31:41I say the truth will come to the light and the Lord knows I'm an innocent man.
31:46Someday, somewhere, the truth is going to come out in my case.
31:52Thank you, Ronald Cotton.
31:53After two years in prison, Cotton was granted a new trial on the basis that the jury should have learned about both rapes.
32:03But the second victim had changed her mind, saying now that she would identify Cotton as her rapist too.
32:10Still, the defense was confident Cotton would be exonerated of both charges until Bobby Poole got up to testify.
32:18Bobby Poole testifies under oath, sitting in this chair behind me, that he did not rape these two women.
32:27And that he did not make those statements to these two informants in prison that they say that he did.
32:35Furthermore, now, Jennifer is in the courtroom, 15 feet away from Bobby Poole.
32:40Victim number two is in there, 15 feet away, looking at him.
32:46They testify, Bobby Poole didn't rape me.
32:49Ronald Cotton did.
32:50I never remember looking at Bobby Poole thinking, I've got the wrong person.
32:57I mean, I made a huge mistake.
33:00Now I remember, that never entered my head.
33:05It just didn't.
33:07Again, I thought, this is just a game.
33:10This is just a game they're playing.
33:11Jennifer Thompson had, for years, said that Ronald Cotton was the man who raped her.
33:18She had taken the witness stand, put her hand on the Bible, and swore that she was certain that Ronald Cotton was the man who raped her.
33:26By the time she saw Bobby Poole, she was not about to change that.
33:31She had staked herself out.
33:33She had sworn that it was Ronald Cotton.
33:36She was not about to turn around and say, oops, I'm sorry, I forgot.
33:39That was a mistake.
33:40It's that man over there.
33:41Sorry, Ronald.
33:43That's not you.
33:44That doesn't happen.
33:46Because whatever image she had in her mind of the rapist was now Ronald Cotton.
33:52The judge says that the evidence that Bobby Poole committed these crimes
33:56does not meet the test in North Carolina of direct evidence.
34:03And therefore, we may not present his testimony.
34:10We may not present any evidence that Bobby Poole committed these crimes.
34:16At the end of a trial, I ordinarily ask the defendant who's been convicted,
34:21if in addition to what his attorney has said about what the judgment ought to be,
34:26that he wishes to make a statement.
34:28And I remember Cotton saying that if he might, he'd like to sing a song that he composed.
34:36Well, it became very quiet in the courtroom because none of us were accustomed to
34:41someone singing a song in the courtroom.
34:43Decisions I could no longer make
34:48Because my future's so unknown to me
34:52And that I could no longer take
34:58Cause during the day I wonder
35:02At night I heard with fear
35:05Call out your name so much
35:07To suddenly tears appear
35:09Until God came in my life
35:15Until God came in my life
35:17I remember there was an immense amount of
35:20Anger that I felt towards him
35:23That, how dare you try to receive sympathy
35:27From people in this courtroom
35:30When you've done this horrible crime
35:32And at the same time I felt like
35:34If you had been saved, if Jesus had really entered your life
35:36If you are going to be redeemed
35:39Then I hope so for you
35:41But there was such a mixed feeling
35:45That it was sickening, it was nauseating
35:48I wanted to just throw up
35:51I wanted to cry
35:53I can remember my face feeling hot
35:55My heart racing
35:57And it was, that's one of the moments that I lost it
36:02Until God come in my life
36:12Lord, you know that I
36:17Shall not be moved
36:20Shall not be moved
36:22I shall not be moved
36:25You know that I
36:27I shall not be moved
36:28Bill Cotton was convicted for committing both rapes
36:31We shall not be moved
36:33He was returned to prison where he would serve out
36:35Two life sentences
36:37By singing in the choir when I was in the car
36:41It helped me to be joyful and happy with myself
36:47It just helped me to deal with what I was going through
36:50his case remained unchanged for eight more years
37:07then in the summer of 1995 by chance cotton's case came to the attention of law professor
37:14rich rosen it was pure accident that i was able to look at the case when i did
37:20most of the time people ask me to look at their cases i get calls from lawyers and i just can't
37:26do it i don't have the time what struck me was how little evidence there was aside from the
37:32eyewitness identifications of course one of the eyewitness identifications was very weak
37:37given the the length of time that the person who committed these crimes spent in the houses
37:43given the nature of the assaults i would have expected a lot more physical evidence
37:47implicating ronald cotton it wasn't there that surprised me by now rosen had a new weapon to
37:56overturn cotton's previous two convictions dna testing on semen samples had become a standard
38:03forensic tool in rape cases but there were risks we felt we had a strong legal claim before we asked
38:12for dna testing and that we had at least a decent chance of winning it and getting ronald a new trial
38:16so there was a risk if we did dna testing and it turned out to show that ronald did the crime
38:21that we would lose that claim we brought this up to ronald told him about this he was insistent
38:28that he wanted the dna testing done we talked about it a number of times fully discussed the risks
38:33uh he still said he wanted it done our feeling at that point was that it was it was it should be done
38:40but to do dna testing would require old evidence from the case evidence that most likely no longer
38:49existed police are not required to keep evidence once a case is over and it is routinely destroyed
38:55but to his surprise rosen discovered that the medical evidence was still in the police's possession
39:02detective mike galden had saved it this was a heavily litigated case beginning in 1984
39:10after the conviction in 1987 we knew that it would be reviewed again by the state supreme court
39:16so i just continued to sign off and instruct our evidence custodian to retain it and i felt like too
39:23that this was going to be one of those cases that lingered on forever
39:26even with the evidence preserved new dna testing would turn on the willingness of prosecutors to
39:34open up an old case why would they risk overturning the convictions one years earlier before two separate
39:42juries i lost a lot of sleep over this case i did not want to be responsible for turning loose on the
39:51people of alamance county a serial rapist by the same token uh since this was my responsibility i did not
39:59want to be responsible for keeping someone in prison who may be innocent
40:06since the last trial in 1987 jennifer thompson had had little contact with the authorities
40:14it was spring uh 1995 uh i was happy where i was at in my life and i received a phone call from mike
40:27galden and he told me that they needed to come and see me and when he and rob johnson the district
40:35attorney came over they began to tell me about dna we let her know up front that it raised questions
40:44as to whether or not uh cotton had been rightfully or wrongfully convicted and we did not know what
40:50the ultimate results would be at that point in time this was not an easy conversation it was very
40:56awkward it was very difficult because we were dredging up for her events that she had gone through
41:03in 1984 that she had had to live through in the trial in 1985 that she had had to live through
41:08again in the retrial of 1987. when they finally called up and said yes they were able to do the
41:16tests and yes they were able to exclude ronald as the person who committed one of the rapes
41:22it was a wonderful feeling it showed that what we had felt all along was correct
41:28first time in a long time you are walking out of here today it's free man it was very emotional in
41:34the alamance county courtroom yesterday when the judge virtually opened cotton's locked cell
41:38he says he doesn't carry bitterness about his imprisonment i was told that he would be on the news
41:46and uh so i made sure i turned it on and watched it i remember feeling just an overwhelming sense of
41:56just guilt that if indeed we had made a mistake and i had contributed to taking away eleven years of this
42:10man's life and if indeed we had been wrong uh i i felt so bad i felt i fell apart
42:28if ronald cotton didn't commit the rapes who did police went back to the dna lab this time to look for
42:35the real rapist from the freezer where samples from 20 000 violent offenders are kept they withdrew a
42:43blood-soaked card labeled with the name bobby pool confronted with the evidence pool confessed to both
42:50rapes he spent more than a decade behind bars for a crime he didn't commit how did new dna testing ronald cotton
43:00was only the latest in a string of prisoners released because dna showed they had been wrongfully
43:05convicted for the first time in the 12 years since kathy crow webb accused him of raping her gary
43:12dodson in the past four years over three dozen convicted rapists have been freed by dna
43:19they've said they didn't do it all along but it took two new confessions
43:22and new dna evidence to set them free to put it bluntly it's been pure hell
43:28when you look at the cases of people who've been wrongfully convicted it's a recognition that mistakes
43:37can be made that we've got to renew our efforts in the first place to make sure that innocent people
43:42aren't charged in the first place but that once a prosecution is instituted it is important that
43:49the prosecutors the detectives the participants in the criminal justice system keep their eyes and ears
43:55open for any sign any evidence that we may be on the wrong crack
44:03many of these cases began with a prisoner's letter sent to the innocence project at cardoza
44:08law school in new york law students there sort through and research thousands of
44:13pleas that pour in from prisoners hoping to overturn their convictions
44:18looking at this body of three dozen or so post-conviction exonerations
44:22one is led tragically to the conclusion that they're just the tip of the iceberg that there
44:28are hundreds if not thousands of people who are factually innocent who just didn't commit the crime
44:32they're the wrong guy who are riding in prison or waiting on death row to be executed and we've got
44:38to do something about it i'm writing you because i'm an innocent man wrongly convicted for a crime for
44:43which i did not commit i need your help and do not think it's fair after 10 years to continue serving
44:48time for a crime i did not do i've mailed my case to many places for help but no response no one knows
44:54how many cases there are but their cause is becoming all too clear they would know that i'm not guilty
45:00what these cases are telling us uh something that we already knew from other studies is that mistaken
45:07identification is the single greatest cause of the conviction of the innocent it's true today it's
45:13always been true dna testing is showing us with a great deal of scientific certainty that it's an
45:20even greater problem than we suspected
45:26back in north carolina the people who put ronald cotton in prison are still struggling to understand
45:32what went wrong i can recall early on in my career as a young police officer
45:39hearing that there were people in prison that ought not be there and thinking that that's probably a
45:46bunch of malarkey that um if you do a good investigation you do the things that you should do
45:55and it goes through the system through our criminal justice system and if somebody is found guilty
46:02then they ought to be there then they ought to be there uh what this case tells me what the ronald
46:06cotton case tells me is that regardless of what your intentions were how well you did your job
46:12uh he's somebody that uh shouldn't have been in prison
46:21in my mind i was sure what i saw um
46:25um thinking back on it uh i don't know that i would have done anything different
46:34one of the things that we know about memory is that when you experience something extremely upsetting
46:39or traumatic you don't just record the event like a videotape machine would work
46:46one of america's leading experts on human memory elizabeth loftus has testified in scores of legal cases that
46:53hinged on the recollections of an eyewitness the process is much more complex and what's happening
46:59is you're taking in bits and pieces of the experience you're storing some information
47:03about the experience but it's not some indelible image that you're going to be able to dig out and
47:10replay later on loftus says eyewitnesses are much more likely to make a mistake when they must identify a
47:18perpetrator of a different race one of the things that we know from many scientific studies is that
47:25people do have more trouble identifying the faces of strangers of a different race than strangers of
47:32their own race it doesn't seem to have to do with how much prejudice you might feel for members of a
47:38different race even people who are relatively free of feelings of prejudice still have the cross-racial
47:45identification problem so it it may be that we actually are just scanning those faces differently
47:52processing them differently and ultimately this affects our ability to recognize
47:59i can't tell you the number of hours that i've sat down and gone over the files and
48:05repeatedly read them in an effort to see
48:07what if anything could have been done differently in 1984 or 1987 uh what we could have done differently
48:17the police uh to have prevented this from happening elizabeth loftus would tell mike golden to re-examine
48:25that first moment when jennifer thompson picked out ronald cotton as the suspect when a victim goes to a
48:33photo spread looks at a set of photos one of the things that would be natural is for that victim to think
48:41the police must have a suspect or they wouldn't have brought me here and so if they've got a
48:47suspect in mind if they've got an idea who the perpetrator is and they communicate that
48:53idea to the victim even unwittingly she may be more sensitive to picking up that communication
49:00after i picked it out they looked at me and they said we thought this might be the one
49:06this kind of feedback can artificially increase the confidence level of the victim make the victim
49:13more certain if the police believe it they must have a good reason and now you've got a victim who's
49:19going to be even more persuasive when she goes into the courtroom to testify then perhaps is warranted
49:26i felt a lot of pressure because i knew that my eyewitness testimony
49:32was going to be a lot of what the jury was going to take in and a lot of their decision would be based
49:39on my strength as an eyewitness we're finding out that yes mistakes have been made yes mistakes have
49:46been made even in cases where people were really close to each other as in a rape case
49:52but the implications of this result for all the other cases out there if this can happen in a rape case
50:01what about assaults what about muggings what about carjackings what about other kinds of robberies where
50:09two people see each other briefly and later there's some identification what is it saying about all those cases
50:21after his release ronald cotton found work at the one place that would never question his innocence
50:30the lab that tested his dna he betrays little bitterness but wonders why he has never heard from jennifer thompson
50:38what would i say to miss thompson well i would like to know how she feel right now
50:52what what what does she have to say in her own words you know to me
50:57i have to accept the answer that's been given to me and put faith in our system
51:10the dna tests the science tells me we had the wrong guy i just wish i had some answers
51:18i still see ronald cotton and i'm not saying that to to point a finger i'm just saying that's
51:28who i see and i would love to erase that face out of my mind i would do anything to erase that face out
51:36of my mind but i can't it's just it's it's in my head sometimes it's more fuzzy than others because my mind now
51:45says well it's bobby pool but it's it's still the face i see
52:02at frontline's website delve deeper into eyewitness identification
52:07compare these photos yourself with the composite sketch and i woke up explore the meaning of memory
52:13see the face dna testing is showing see how experts including barry sheck take on the most frequently
52:19asked questions about dna evidence at frontline online at www.pbs.org
52:30and next time the critically acclaimed movie dead man walking told her story a nun working on death row
52:38now frontline tells the rest of the story the killers the victims and the real woman who's rekindled the
52:50debate on the death penalty angel on death row next time on frontline
52:57now your letters and i'm asking myself why why am i watching this a few of you like mark wolf from las
53:11vegas found filmmaker ross mckelwee's exploration of truth and tv news perplexing what is this show
53:17supposed to be about anyways a more pointed complaint came via email your frontline what pointless happen
53:23utter banality for this immature drivel and pseudo-intellectual amusing but the rest of you
53:28who wrote waxed rhapsodic six o'clock news was magnificent a drink of cool real water in a
53:34sensationalistic desert ross's filmmaking flies in the face of every corporate attempt
53:39to disconnect us from our own lives and for that i'm grateful tom wilson in cia california i told myself
53:45i'll just watch for 10 minutes i've got stuff to do but it was transfixing his work is a contemplative
53:51answer to the mediocrity that dominates the tube mark lowentrout salt lake city in a world where
53:56life is made more and more into a spectacle every day by the media it's revitalizing to view such a
54:01personal perspective on what is real lisa freeman in the end mckelwee's electronic perspective further
54:09illuminates how versatile and tough human will can be no matter how chaotic life seems to have become
54:15all around us donovan done since the death of my two-year-old daughter i've had many of the
54:20thoughts about god that were expressed in your film it's important to see how we as human beings
54:24deal with the traumatic side of life as well as to try to understand it in our own way unfortunately
54:30the pain and suffering is so neatly packaged on television it's all too easy to become desensitized
54:35jim deckerson's lion mystic let us know what you thought about tonight's program
54:52so
54:58so
55:04so
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