Jennifer Thompson, whose personal story of tragedy and redemption forms the core of her bestselling book, Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, March 30 at 10:50 a.m. Based on “Picking Cotton,” Thompson’s presentation will recount the personal experiences that led to her unlikely friendship with a man wrongly accused of attacking her, and her subsequent advocacy on behalf of judicial reform. Following her presentation, Thompson will sign copies of Picking Cotton (St. Martin’s Press, 2009), which will be available for purchase at the event at a 15% discount. Held in the College’s Skinner Memorial Chapel, this event is free and open to the public.
In 1984, at the age of 22, college student Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. Focusing on memorizing the man’s features, Thompson was eventually able to confidently identify Ronald Cotton as the rapist. Her testimony led to a life sentence for Cotton. Eleven years later, Cotton’s name was cleared by DNA testing. The true rapist, Bobby Poole, was a man Thompson claimed she had never seen before, while the man Thompson had been certain was the rapist—Ronald Cotton—was actually innocent.
After meeting face-to-face for the first time two years later, Cotton and Thompson eventually formed an unlikely friendship, and Thompson, tormented by the knowledge of what her mistake had cost Cotton, began speaking out about her experience and became an advocate for judicial reform, working on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. “Picking Cotton,” co-authored with Ronald Cotton and Erin Torneo, is a New York Times bestseller and the winner of a Soros Media Fellowship Award. More information can be found at www.pickingcottonbook.com.
Thompson is an active member of the Actual Innocence Commission, Active Voices, the Constitution Project and Mothers for Justice. Her editorials have appeared in newspapers including the Times and the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun. She has spoken on behalf of inmates including Gary Graham (executed by the state of Texas in 2000) and Troy Davis (executed by the state of Georgia in 2011). In her work Thompson has used her own case as an example of how eyewitness testimony can be flawed and of the consequences of making a mistake.
For more information about this event, including disability accommodations, contact the Carleton College Office of College Relations at (507) 222-4308. Skinner Memorial Chapel is located on First Street between College and Winona Streets in Northfield. Copies of Picking Cotton are currently available at a 15% discount at the Carleton College Bookstore, located in the Sayles Hill Campus Center, or by calling (507) 222-4153.
