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Right: Rape victim and an unlikely friend push for justice
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Published: March 8, 2009
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino was certain that Ronald Cotton raped her in Burlington in the summer of 1984. She picked him out of a lineup, identified him in court and rejoiced when he was sentenced to life plus 50 years.
In Winston-Salem, she rebuilt her life, assuaging her memories of the rape with her belief that justice had worked and she'd ensured that the rapist would rot in prison. In 1995, DNA testing proved that another man had raped Thompson-Cannino, and Cotton was exonerated and released after 11 years in prison. He was overjoyed and Thompson-Cannino was devastated. Eventually, together, they began working to reform the justice system that failed them both so miserably.
This is the compelling story that Thompson-Cannino and Cotton tell with the help of writer Erin Torneo in their new book, Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption. A 60 Minutes segment in which Thompson-Cannino and Cotton talk about the book is scheduled to run tonight. Their story should challenge more people to insist on criminal-justice reform.
In Winston-Salem, the Deborah Sykes murder case and the Jill Marker beating case have underscored the need for that. DNA testing exonerated Darryl Hunt in Sykes' murder and implicated another man, and Thomson-Cannino has often spoken out with Hunt for justice. "Certainly, Forsyth County has been slower to reform than any other North Carolina county that I've seen," she said last week, speaking of the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office and the Winston-Salem Police Department. "We're slow to admit that we've failed, and to put changes in place that would lessen the failure rate," said Thompson-Cannino.
She added that she thinks Scott Cunningham, who took the helm at the Winston-Salem Police Department last summer, will provide good leadership. He has continued reforms in lineups and interviewing. District Attorney Tom Keith said that there are good detectives in the department. But, he added, "until the city creates a career-detective path that has adequate training and compensation for senior investigators to handle complex, serious cases, the taxpayer may continue to have questions about the thoroughness of investigations."
While at Elon College, Thompson-Cannino was raped in her off-campus apartment by a man wielding a knife. She's brutally honest in the book about her hatred then of Cotton, as well as her frustration with well-meaning family members who wanted her to "move on" with her life.
Cotton acknowledged last week that he wasn't an angel. At 16, he'd been charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit rape, which he writes involved a girl with whom he had "messed around some before." He was charged after he walked into her house and slipped into her bed, he writes. The startled girl yelled, and her mother called the police on him.
He pleaded guilty because his lawyer told him that was his best option, and he spent 18 months at a youth prison. "When I got out, I made a couple more stupid mistakes," he writes. "I was caught breaking and entering, and had just gotten out of prison in February '84."
Burlington police knew about his earlier crimes. And Cotton, who is black, writes that they didn't like the fact that he dated white women.
Cotton struggled to stay alive in prison. In a Dickensian twist, he recognized a Burlington man who entered prison on a rape conviction a few months after he did, Bobby Leon Poole, as looking so much like him that he was sure Poole was the man who'd raped Thompson-Cannino. Cotton won a new trial. His lawyers subpoenaed Poole, who denied on the witness stand, out of the jury's presence, raping Thompson-Cannino. Cotton was again convicted of raping Thompson-Cannino. That trial also resulted in a new conviction for Cotton, one of raping another woman in Thompson-Cannino's neighborhood.
Finally, DNA testing led to the implication of Poole in both crimes and the exoneration of Cotton. It was among the first of what would be many such exonerations through DNA testing nationwide.
Thompson-Cannino, who was raising triplets with her husband, was crushed. "I have to say that the guilt over my part in robbing this man of so many years was not my first concern," she writes.
"I was waiting for Ronald Cotton -- or his family -- to come and exact revenge. It was only fair."
But Cotton, who married and went to work, wasn't interested in revenge. When Thompson-Cannino finally set up a meeting with him, he forgave her. The two eventually became close friends. They are powerful voices for reform. For example, in the book, Thompson-Cannino makes a strong case for "double-blind lineups." In such lineups, she writes, "the law enforcement officer showing a lineup, like the witness, has no idea who the suspect is and therefore can't give any verbal or nonverbal clues as to whether you've picked the ‘right' person.
"All those years ago, (a Burlington detective) was doing his job by the book -- but when I asked him if I did OK and he told me yes, then I subconsciously tried to pick the same person out of the physical lineup. ... The standard way eyewitness evidence was collected had failed me, and because of that, I'd failed, too."
Thompson-Cannino and Cotton keep pushing for reform. "We need to get the right guy off the streets," Thompson-Cannino said. "We're not proving anything when we get the wrong guy off the streets, and leave the other guy to continue victimizing innocent people."
■ John Railey writes local editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at 727-7357 or at jrailey@wsjournal.com.
(For more information about Picking Cotton, click on pickingcottonbook.com.)
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