Introduction
The measure of an effective criminal justice system is its ability to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. However, wrongful convictions happen occasionally, which is a great injustice. A conviction is classified as wrongful if the convicted individual is factually innocent of the crime, or if procedural errors during trial breached the individual’s rights. In the past, some of the reasons that have been given for wrongful convictions include reliance on junk technology, inadequate accountability for prosecutors, and a lack of appropriate representation.
The consequences for the wrongly convicted are grave and consequential and include years spent in jail for crimes they did not commit, loss of income, and lost time with the family, among others. This report will address the causes of Ronald Cotton’s wrongful conviction by analyzing multiple factors related to the case. In particular, the report will examine factors such as memory, eyewitness identification, false memories, and alibi as the major circumstances that contributed to Ronald Cotton’s unjust conviction.
Overview of the Case
Ronald Cotton’s case revolved around two incidents in Burlington, North Carolina, in July 1984. In both incidents, a suspect broke into an apartment, meticulously cut the phone lines, stole money and other items, and sexually assaulted a woman. These crimes prompted a long investigation process that ultimately resulted in the prosecution and wrongful conviction of Ronald Cotton.
Following the robbery and sexual assault incidents, Cotton was arrested on August 1, 1984 (Torneo et al., 2010). In January of the following year, he was convicted of one count of rape and burglary by a jury. The second trial, which was held in November 1987, also found him guilty, prompting the Alamance County Superior Court to sentence him to life imprisonment with an additional fifty-four years.
In this case, the investigations involved collecting key evidence and lineup identification. Specifically, the prosecutor relied on photo and lineup identification that both victims made. In addition, the investigators collected a flashlight from the suspect’s house, which the victims indicated resembled the one used by their attacker.
Further, the investigators matched Cotton’s shoes with the rubber at one crime scene to tie him to attacks and theft (Torneo et al., 2010). Armed with these key pieces of evidence, the prosecution proceeded to charge Cotton with rape and burglary for both crimes, for which he was convicted and sentenced. However, an interview with Cotton’s family members discounted the investigators’ evidence since they vouched for his whereabouts at the time these crimes were committed.
Consequently, while Cotton was eventually convicted, the evidence the jury relied upon was inadequate for a criminal conviction and, at worst, highly contradictory. Specifically, Cotton had a strong alibi from members of his family who testified to his whereabouts at the time of the commission of the two crimes. However, for some reason, the jury was not allowed to listen to this testimony, which significantly impacted this case.
In addition, the second victim did not initially identify Cotton as the perpetrator using photos, nor during the police lineup. Like the alibi before it, this information was never presented to the jury (Torneo et al., 2010). Given the flawed nature of the conviction, the defense ought to challenge it and collect more evidence to prove that Cotton was wrongly convicted.
The first conviction was challenged on behalf of Cotton, leading to the dismissal of charges in one conviction by the North Carolina Supreme Court. This conviction was primarily possible because the second victim had identified another perpetrator other than Cotton in the lineup. However, the second victim changed their statement during the retrial and alleged that Cotton was the assailant. Another contradiction that happened during this case occurred when an inmate confessed to committing the crimes for which Cotton was now serving a life sentence (Torneo et al., 2010). Unfortunately, the superior court judge disallowed this confession, leading to another conviction for the two rapes and burglary for Cotton.
Cotton was determined to prove his innocence, and in 1994, two new attorneys took up his defense and requested that DNA testing be done. This testing would scientifically substantiate Cotton’s culpability in the crimes he was accused of committing. The DNA testing was conducted in October of that year, which compared Cotton’s DNA with the DNA collected from one of the victims.
However, the samples matched with a convict who had previously confessed to being behind the spate of stealing and sexual assault. The DNA results and collaboration with the district attorney allowed the dismissal of all charges against Cotton (Torneo et al., 2010). He had served ten and a half years during his exoneration. Consequently, he received a pardon from the governor and a monetary reward to compensate him for the agony he was put through.
Causes of Wrongful Conviction
Despite obvious inadequacies in his case, Cotton was convicted and given the maximum sentence under the law. However, this conviction did not stand the test of time since he would later be exonerated of all charges due to a lack of evidence linking him to any of the two crimes he was accused of committing. An overview of his case reveals several factors behind his wrongful conviction. These factors include eyewitness misidentification, constructive memory, confirmation bias, disregard of the alibi, and inadequate defense counsel.
Eye Witness Misidentification
Eye witness misidentification was one of the most significant factors in the wrongful conviction of Cotton. According to Brewin et al. (2020), law enforcement should exercise caution when relying on eyewitness testimonies as evidence due to the potential for misidentification and the fallibility of eyewitness memory. Eye witness misidentification caused the wrongful conviction because, in Cotton’s case, there was an overreliance on his identification by one victim through a photo array and subsequent police lineup.
According to research, overreliance fails to consider that multiple factors influence an eyewitness and is thus highly susceptible to error (Brewin, 2020). Some of the factors that can negatively influence eyewitness identification include stress, weapon focus, the passage of time, and cross-racial identification. Cognizant of these factors, the prosecution should not have over-relied on witness identification as the basis of its entire case against Cotton.
Confirmation Bias and Constructive Memory
Confirmation bias and constructive memory also played a key role in Ronald Cotton’s conviction. Confirmation bias is a common cognitive phenomenon in which an individual is predisposed to seek, interpret, and remember only information that confirms their expectations and existing beliefs, regardless of evidence to the contrary (Levett et al., 2021). Confirmation bias contributes to wrongful convictions because research shows that when an investigator consciously and unconsciously provides information that aligns with their initial suspicion about a suspect, the chances of witness misidentification increase.
Such information influences an eyewitness to alter their memories to match the investigator’s suggestions. It ultimately leads to a misidentification of a suspect. Confirmation bias was evident in Cotton’s case during the photo array presentation and identification using the police lineup. Specifically, the identification procedure could have been influenced by the prosecutor’s implicit and explicit cues, leading to the second victim identifying Cotton as a perpetrator despite initially saying it was another suspect. Thus, she must have felt compelled to identify Cottom due to the multiple cues she was getting from the investigators.
Another factor in Cotton’s misidentification is the human memory’s malleability. The malleability of the memory is the notion that memory is not a fixed record of past events. Instead, memory is actively influenced and reconstructed by multiple factors over time. This factor contributed to wrongful convictions because, according to research, eyewitnesses often fill gaps in what they saw with available memories, which are often influenced by post-event details and suggestive questions (Burton, 2020).
Consequently, the reconstruction process eventually leads to false memories. In Cotton’s case, there is evidence of false memories brought about by the malleability of human memory. In particular, the second victim’s memories might have been subject to a reconstructive process, which led her to misidentify Cotton during the identification process and alter details of her encounter with the assailant.
Failure to Consider Alibi
For unknown reasons, the jury in the case between Ronald Cotton and the State of North Carolina never considered his alibi. Cotton had a strong alibi, which could have exonerated him sooner had the jury been allowed to hear it during the trial (Torneo et al., 2010). Specifically, his friends and family members could vouch for his whereabouts during the time that burglary and sexual assault crimes were committed against the two women. Failure to consider Cotton’s alibi led to a wrongful conviction because research suggests that 65% of people exonerated by evidence had their alibi dismissed (Heath et al., 2021).
An alibi in a criminal investigation is crucial because it prevents a suspect from being linked to a crime scene. If several people can corroborate the alibi, the prosecution should consider the possibility that they might have the wrong suspect in custody. However, despite a solid alibi and collaboration from the family members, the prosecutor did not change their mind about prosecuting him as the main suspect in Ronald Cotton’s case. Instead, events prevented the jury from considering this key piece of evidence.
Inadequate Defense Counsel
Another factor that led to the wrongful conviction of Cotton was inadequate defense counsel. Inadequate defense led to a wrongful conviction because a criminal trial, such as rape and burglary, requires a prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the crime they are being alleged to have committed (Norris, 2021). Consequently, the evidential threshold for such crimes is higher than that of civil lawsuits.
From an analysis of Cotton’s case, any standard lawyer would have noted immediately that the prosecution did not have enough evidence to substantiate its accusations. Instead, the prosecutor had circumstantial evidence that lacked a DNA report to confirm that Cotton was the mastermind behind the two crimes, and there were inconsistencies in the testimonies of the two victims. As such, the case ought to have collapsed during the trial due to a lack of evidence and inconsistencies in the evidence the prosecution relied on to prove its case. This failure to challenge or counter the evidence presented in Cotton’s trial indicates that the defense counsel did not effectively represent the accused.
In addition, the counsel failed to present evidence from the second victim’s confession and did not argue for case dismissal when there were clear contradictions in both testimonies. According to Rossmo and Pollock (2019), inadequate counsel advice is among the reasons for wrongful convictions. In Cotton’s case, it was apparent that his attorneys in the first and second trials were not up to the task. Consequently, it was only after he changed his attorneys that the new ones petitioned a DNA test that exonerated him and paved the way for his release and compensation for wrongful incarceration.
Cotton’s Exoneration and Current Status
After serving ten and a half years in prison, Ronald Cotton was found innocent of the charges against him and was released in June 1995. His freedom was won by a DNA test that confirmed that he was innocent of the charges he was convicted of. DNA samples from one of the victims failed to match his, but they matched a convict who had earlier confessed to being the perpetrator (Torneo et al., 2010). On receipt of the DNA results, Cotton’s attorneys liaised with the district attorney to drop the charges. Consequently, he was granted a pardon by the state of North Carolina’s governor, who recognized the grave miscarriage of justice that his case was.
Cotton dedicated his life to ensuring that the criminal justice system was reformed immediately after his release. His activism has taken him throughout the United States, where he spreads awareness of the need for reforms to enhance the reliability of eyewitness testaments and identification. He also partnered with Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, one of the female victims who misidentified him, to share their personal stories to discourage such injustice from occurring again (Torneo et al., 2010).
Their joint efforts have educated a significant portion of the US public about the flaws in the criminal justice system and the steps that should be taken to eliminate them. This awareness has changed people’s perception of the criminal justice system and allowed them to see the urgency of reforms to create an impartial, fair system that ensures that justice is always served without fail. Cotton now lives with his wife in North Carolina and occasionally speaks in educational institutions about reforming the criminal justice system.
Ms. Thompson and the Other Victim
Ronald Cotton never held a grudge against the women whose testimony helped jail him for more than ten years. Instead, he sought to collaborate with one of the victims, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, on a national tour to spread awareness of the necessity for changes the criminal justice system. Their partnership helped change many people’s attitudes and has been instrumental in some of the major changes. Ultimately, their work has led to some changes, but wrongful convictions persist in the justice system.
However, this problem has gradually been overcome as technology advances and means of gathering conclusive evidence diversify. The hope for the millions of wrongly accused who are currently languishing in jails across the country is that the remaining bottlenecks are eliminated and a truly free and fair criminal justice system is realized. No information is known about the other victim and her fate.
References
Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., & Mickes, L. (2020). Regaining consensus on the reliability of memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(2), 121–125. Web.
Burton, H. (2020). The malleability of memory: A conversation with Elizabeth. Ideas Roadshow.
Heath, W., Stein, J., & Afiouni, S. (2021). “But I wasn’t there!” The Wrongful Conviction Law Review, 2(3), 240–276. Web.
Levett, L. M., Haigh, C. B., & Perez, G. (2021). Toward a broader framework of eyewitness identification behavior. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 10(3), 341–345. Web.
Norris, R. J. (2021). When justice fails: Causes and consequences of wrongful convictions. Carolina Academic.
Rossmo, K., & Pollock, J. (2019). Confirmation bias and other systemic causes of wrongful convictions: A Sentinel Events Perspective. SSRN Electronic Journal. Web.
Torneo, E., Cotton, R., & Thompson-Cannino, J. (2010). Picking Cotton: Our memoir of injustice and redemption. St. Martin’s Griffin.