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Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

Status: Featured Selections
by FeaturedSelectionReaders
Status: Featured Selections
Picking Cotton   is a story about a rape and its legal aftermath, but it’s really about so much more. Jennifer Thompson was a college student when, with a knife at her throat, she was startled from her sleep, and then attacked by an angry rapist. Terrified, but apparently at least partly unfazed, this former homecoming queen escaped from this predator, but not before she made clear note of his face. Several days later, she picked Ronald Cotton out of a lineup. Several months later, she testified against him at the trial. Two years later, when he won an appeal, she took the stand again and again he was convicted, sent to a North Carolina prison for life. There he remained incarcerated for eleven years; then a DNA test confirmed what Cotton already knew: He was innocent. With his release, the deeper story begins. After this long, intense ordeal victim Ronald and victim/former accuser Jennifer somehow become not only friends, but also committed partners in the fight against future injustices. While I was reading this book, I came upon Edith Wharton’s description of a good story. She called it, “a shaft driven straight into the heart of human experience.” This is such a story.
Categories: biography, law
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