環(huán)球英語 — 691：Choosing Cotton, Part One
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Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Ryan Geertsma.
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And I’m Robin Basselin. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Do you think you have a good memory? Can you remember small details? What about the faces of people you have just met? Many people think they have a good memory. Jennifer Thompson thought she did. However, her imperfect memory caused an innocent man to go to prison for eleven years. Today’s Spotlight is on the unlikely story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton. It is the first program in a two part series.
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It was late one night in July of 1984. Jennifer Thompson was sleeping. She woke up and saw someone in her room. She did not recognize the man. But she could see that he had a knife. The man attacked Jennifer. He forced her to have sex with him. Jennifer was frightened. But she tried to stay calm. Jennifer carefully looked at the man and studied his face. She could not see him very well because the room was dark. However, she wanted to make sure that she could identify the man after the attack.
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Jennifer finally escaped from her attacker. She ran to a close by house. There, she fell down - tired, weak and in shock. When Jennifer woke up, the police were at the house. They took Jennifer to a hospital for medical treatment. Doctors and officers collected evidence from Jennifer - her clothes, pictures of her injuries and other DNA or genetic evidence.
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After her medical treatment, Jennifer went to the police station. She worked with a police officer to create a picture of her attacker. Police hoped someone would recognize the man. After a few days, a person from the community told the police about Ronald Cotton. He said Ronald looked at lot like the picture.
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The police suspected that Ronald was Jennifer’s attacker. So, they decided to have Jennifer come back to the police station. Officers asked Jennifer if she thought she could identify her attacker. Jennifer was SURE she could. So, an officer showed Jennifer pictures of six men - one picture was of Ronald Cotton.
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Jennifer looked at the pictures carefully. She felt like she had to choose the right man. She wanted to find her attacker. Finally, Jennifer chose the picture of Ronald Cotton. The officers told Jennifer that she had done a good job. Jennifer felt SURE she had chosen the right man.
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Soon, the police began looking for Ronald. So, Ronald went to the police station to talk to the officers. Ronald knew he had done nothing wrong. He was not Jennifer’s attacker. He thought he would just answer the officers’ questions and go free. But Ronald was wrong.
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After a few days, the police had Ronald and five other men stand in a line in front of Jennifer. The officers asked Jennifer if the man that attacked her was in the line. After carefully looking at all the men, Jennifer again identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker.
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Ronald was charged with the crime. Jennifer’s memory and identification of Ronald was the main evidence in court. And it was powerful evidence. On January 18, 1985, Ronald Cotton was found guilty of attacking Jennifer. He was sent to prison for the rest of his life.
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After Jennifer’s attack, her memories were difficult. She was hurt emotionally. She was worried and frightened all the time. However, after Ronald was found guilty, she finally felt that one thing was good - the court system had worked.
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Ronald felt the opposite about the court process. He had always denied that he had attacked Jennifer. He could not believe that he had been found guilty. And he did not understand why Jennifer thought he was her attacker.
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For eleven years, Ronald remained in prison. For many of these years, he worked hard to prove that he was innocent. Ronald believed he knew who the real attacker was. In prison, Ronald met a man named Bobby Leon Poole. Poole looked a lot like Ronald. In fact, many prisoners would mistake Ronald for Poole. One day a prisoner told Ronald that Poole had admitted that he had attacked Jennifer. However, the authorities would not listen to this new evidence.
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Life for Ronald in prison was very difficult. Many times he lost hope. However, he knew that he was innocent. And he remembered that God knew he was innocent too. For many years, Ronald found hope in something his father told him.
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“God is going to be there for you when no one else is, son. When no one else is listening, he will bend his ear down to listen.”
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Ronald believed this was true. He knew that God heard his prayers and this gave him hope - even when he thought he might never leave prison.
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Then, one day in 1994, Ronald heard about a new scientific process called DNA testing. Human genetic material or DNA, is too small to even see, but it is often present on evidence from places of crime. Scientists can test this DNA evidence and prove if a person was or was not at the place of a crime.
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In 1995, Ronald asked the court to test the DNA from his criminal case. The results of the DNA test linked Bobby Poole and not Ronald Cotton to the crime. Poole finally admitted to the police that HE had attacked Jennifer. Now, there was enough evidence to prove that Ronald Cotton was innocent.
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After eleven years, Ronald Cotton was a free man. DNA evidence had proved that Jennifer Thompson’s memory was incorrect. Her mistake seemed almost unbelievable. Jennifer had worked so hard to study her attacker. And she was so sure Ronald was the man.
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However, research shows that memory is not always as exact as we think. Often, faces are unclear or remembered only in part. This makes it difficult for witnesses to identify their attackers from a set of suspects. Memory expert Gary Wells explained to the CBS News organization,
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“When the real attacker is not in a set of suspects, witnesses have a very difficult time being able to recognize that.”
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So instead, witnesses often choose the person who looks the MOST like the attacker. And this happens in many cases. In fact, in the United States, over 230 men have been released from prison because DNA evidence proved they were innocent. They had been in prison for crimes they did not commit. Of these men, seventy five percent were found guilty the first time because witnesses had incorrectly identified them.
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The story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton is an amazing story of mistaken memory, injustice and finally freedom. However, Jennifer and Ronald’s story does not end there. Listen for another Spotlight program in the “Choosing Cotton” series. This program will tell about Jennifer and Ronald’s life, and their unlikely friendship, after Ronald’s release from prison.
