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Picking Cotton is the story of a man by the name of Ronald Carlton being wrongfully convicted of rape by a woman named Jennifer Thompson. Jennifer Thompson was a young college student when a man broke into her house and raped her the middle the night. She was able to escape when she gained the rapist trust and he allowed her to go to the bathroom. She ended up running out of the house and screaming for help. Later that week Jennifer Thompson chose Ronald Cotton in a lineup as the man who was her rapist.  Ronald cotton went to prison for 11 years, he was later found innocent through DNA evidence and him and Jennifer Thompson met up had a conversation and although things were difficult they were able to create a friendship.

They now travel the world advocating for people who have been wrongfully convicted trying to help them get their stories out. That’s my favorite part of the book because even though Ronald had to spend 11 years of his adulthood in prison he was able to come out and do what  many people would not be able to do- including myself, which is forgive the woman who wrongfully accused him of rape which led to him sitting in prison for 11 years. They took this negative situation and turned into a positive. The untamable beast. Black Rapist stereotype contributed to Ronald Cottons imprisonment. He was convicted with little to no evidence the police assume that because he was a black man who had an interest in a white woman he must’ve raped Jennifer. Systemic racism played a role, because the police officers were already angry that Ronald Cotton had a history with dating white women and they used their power to convict him of a crime as the officer said “We got your ass”. Those power structures worked together and accused him of a crime without evidence. Although that turned out not to be true he could not get those 11 years that he spent from age 18 to 29 back.

Things that I’ve learned about this topic that I didn’t know before was that  DNA evidence was such a new thing. DNA evidence didn’t start being introduced until the mid 90s which is very shocking because it makes you think about all the people that could’ve possibly been in jail for 20-30 years possibly even died there because the technology wasn’t there to prove innocence or guilt.

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The development in DNA evidence gave many people falsely accused of crimes the choice to go for a retrial to prove their innocence through DNA.

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The novel that I read it’s called Picking Cotton. Picking Cotton took place in the south during the Mid 80s and 90s. Racial tensions have always been more overt in the south since the days of Jim Crow. Interracial dating is something that although it is now legal people still looked down upon and so when Ronald Cotton was accused of rape by Jennifer Thompson there was a social response of well he is a black man who likes white women, so he must have raped her as if he couldn't control himself. The stereotype of black men being beastly and untamed around white women dates back to slavery, which still puts black men at risk today in 2018. When he went down to the police station to try and clear his name the detective told him that “he knows his kind”and “I saw your girlfriend earlier. You think you are Mr.Big Shot going around town screwing white women dont ya? We got your ass!” implying that because he has history of dating white women he must have raped Jennifer Thompson (p84). They did not like that Ronald Cotton- a poor high school dropout was with white women because they didn’t see him as worthy because of his skin tone and also his economic status. They saw this is payback for all of the other women he had been with, it was Jennifer's word against Ronald Cotton‘s word and they were going to take the side of the white woman because there is a history of ignoring black peoples proof over a white womans claims. Although Jennifer was in fact raped, she wasn't raped by Cotton which is the unfortunate part. He had to pay the time for someone else's crime on behalf of the police lacking in effort to find evidence.  There was no solid evidence that he did the crime but they forced him to do the time in the end. Ronald cotton had to continuously fight for his innocence and eventually after 11 years was able to get out of prison for something that he never did.

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My novel is Picking Cotton and the selected topic is Wrongful conviction. Some facts about wrongful conviction are

1. DNA exoneration” is the process of a person being proved innocent post-conviction through DNA testing and evidence.

2. In the US, there have been 1467 exonerations, 321 of them involving DNA.

3. The first DNA exoneration case involved Gary Dotson and took place in 1989 in Chicago.

4. The average length of sentence time served by DNA exonerees is 13.6 years. The total number of years served by all DNA exonerees is 4,156 years.

5. James Bain of Florida was exonerated with DNA testing after serving the longest false imprisonment sentence -- 35 years.

DNA has been paramount to helping clear many people convicted of crimes, before it existed who knows how many innocent men and women could have spent their lives in jail for things they didnt do. Some recent cases of Wrongful Imprisonment are, a man by the name of Horace Roberts, who was accused of killing his former girlfriend and co-worker. He was arrested for 20 years, at the age of 60 he's getting his freedom back, thanks to DNA evidence proving it wasnt him (Garcia,2018). Another example if this is 3 Florida policemen have been convicted with making false arrests and framing people for crimes. This goes to show that this isnt always a case of mistaken identity sometimes they just need to pin a crime on someone who was at the wrong place at the right time. The police department is Biscayne Florida wanted to improve their arrest rates so they decided to falsely accuse innocent people (Caron, 2018).

Citations
“11 Facts About Wrongful Imprisonment.” DoSomething.org | Volunteer for Social Change, www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-wrongful-imprisonment.

Caron, Christina. “Three Florida Police Officers Are Sent to Prison for False Arrests.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/florida-police-officer-false-arrests.html?rref=collection/timestopic/False Arrests, Convictions and Imprisonments&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.

Garcia, Sandra E. “DNA Evidence Exonerates a Man of Murder After 20 Years in Prison.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/20-years-exonerated-dna-prison.html?rref=collection/timestopic/False Arrests, Convictions and Imprisonments&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection.