The story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton is very tragic but one can learn the heartbreaking situation. Jennifer Thompson thought she knew the man that raped her the night of July 28th, 1984. She picked Ronald Cotton out from a photo and physical lineup. 11 years later, DNA evidence proved that her memory served her wrong. Even after facing the man who really raped her. How did this occur? How can a woman accuse the wrong man of raping her even after saying she studied his face during the whole ordeal?
In a survey of 40 cases of innocent people who have been exonerated based on DNA evidence, 36 of those cases involved flawed eyewitness testimony. Even under normal conditions, identifying a face is a difficult task. Imagine being in an emotional laden situation how that much more difficult it must be. This was the case with Jennifer Thompson. High emotions, high level of arousal, and weapons may have affected her memory. But the events that happened at the police station are where most of the flaws occurred. The first flaw is “Errors Due to Suggestion”. Jennifer Thompson was not told that the man may or not be in the photo or physical lineup. So she assumed that the suspect was in the lineup and it was her job to find the man in the lineup. Also, after she picked Ronald Cotton from the physical lineup, the detective influenced her decision by saying “Good, that’s the same man you picked from the photo lineup”. If Jennifer was unsure about the man she picked in the photo lineup, by the detective saying “good” after the physical lineup, it made her more confident about her decision. Another flaw is that the police presented both the photo and physical lineup simultaneously as oppose to sequentially. Thompson said that during the photo lineup, she spent 5 minutes looking at the pictures to make sure she chose the right man. That gave her a chance to compare all the men and to see “Who is most like the person I saw?”
Thompson erroneous decision of picking...