Summary and Reflection Paper

                                                     Summary and Reflection Paper

Introduction

This paper seeks to summarize and reflects on the main ideas of the book Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and redemption. It captures an emotional and inspiring story of Ronald Cotton’s wrongful conviction. A fragile human memory of Jennifer Thompson picked Ronald cotton out of a line up as evidence of her rape. The procedures of the criminal justice system on the unreliable nature of eyewitness testimony coupled with racism can deny people justice.

Overall summary of the book

A man broke into Jennifer Thompson’s apartment and raped her at knifepoint while she slept. However, she was able to escape the attacker. A line up of men was made to identify the attacker, and Jenifer Thompson positively Identified Ronald Cotton as the attacker Ronald insisted he was innocent and was rather mistaken, but the identification by Jennifer was compelling evidence to incarcerate him for 11 years. Later after 11 years, a DNA test saves Ronald as it proved his innocence. Ronald, after serving 11 years in prison for the crime he did not commit he was released.

Jennifer and Ronald met face to face two years later and forgave each other, and their lives change due to the unlikely friendship that ensued. Their actions unfolded the details of their tragedy, which then challenge our judgment and memory to demonstrate the human nature of forgiveness. The book reveals the wrongful incarceration of people based on the mistakes of the prosecution, for example, the eyewitness testimony, which relies on a fragile memory.

One main idea presented in the book

One main idea in this book is the wrongful incarceration of people. Ronald Cotton had to spend more than a decade behind bars for the mistake he did not commit because of the wrong evidence. Had it not for the DNA testing to exonerate Ronald, he could have spent the rest of his life in prison. Wrongful conviction is an injustice to the suspect. Police investigations, which do not provide compelling evidence, is a danger to the innocent. Ronald had no chance to get legal representation like others and ended discrimination because he was a black American.

Psychological Consequences of Wrongful Conviction in Women and the Possibility of Positive Change.

https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=jsj

This article delves into the human impacts of traumatic events of wrongful convictions. Life after a wrongful conviction is challenging, and moving on with the normal life is not easy. To live beyond the trauma of incarceration, especially when one was innocent, is depressing. People have to deal with deep personal loss in terms of time for the loved ones and the time lost for job and work. Wrongful conviction trauma has been compared with trauma by war veterans who sustained catastrophes over a long time.

A personal reflection about the main idea in the book

The book presents an amazing story, which brings forward injustice. It is inspiring to see how these two people recovered from injustice. The two had to forgive each other and move on. The book also provides a clear message on what to think about the justice system, which relies on ways, witness testimony. This is so disturbing, bearing in mind that the human memory is shaky and can lead to false accusations of the innocent. The result is wrongful convictions, which leads to horror or wrongful incarceration.

Another aspect is the issue of racism. Ronald Cotton was a black man, and the unreliable eyewitness testimony was mostly on racial lines. This also contributed to the wrongful conviction where race played a key role in law enforcement and trials. People cannot get equal opportunity to justice when the ground for the quest for justice is not on the level playing ground. Racism has led to discrimination and selective justice in the past on a society, which still believes in racial lines.

Conclusion

Every bit of both injustice and redemption can be felt by reading this emotional and inspiring story. It is scary on the basis that we cannot trust our memory or eyes even if we think we can get it right, it can mislead us and therefore relying on eyewitness in court is wrong as innocent people can be sent behind bars due high witness testimony. There is an amazing message to everyone on how to treat others well and forgive them for their wrongdoing.