Over 200 people in the U.S. have had their convictions overturned by DNA evidence. Three-quarters of these cases involved mistaken eyewitness testimony, making it the leading cause of wrongful conviction. Picking Cotton: A True Story, by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino (with Erin Torneo), will illuminate the problems with eyewitness testimony through Thompson-Cannino and Cotton's own story.

Thompson-Cannino has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, frequently addressing the need for judicial reform. After a brutal rape she suffered as a 22-year-old college student, Thompson-Cannino gave eyewitness testimony that sent Ronald Cotton to prison not once, but twice, for crimes he did not commit. Together, they successfully lobbied state legislators to change compensation laws for the wrongly convicted in North Carolina. Thompson-Cannino is now a member of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission, the advisory committee for Active Voices, the Constitution Project, and Mothers for Justice. Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Durham-Herald Sun, and the Tallahassee Democrat.

Ronald Cotton was arrested in 1984 and wrongfully convicted of first-degree rape, sexual offense, and breaking and entering, and sentenced to life in prison plus 54 years. Cotton won a new trial in 1987, only to be charged and convicted of a second rape, resulting in two life sentences. Largely through his persistence in proclaiming his innocence and the development of sophisticated DNA tests, Cotton was exonerated in 1995, after serving nearly eleven years. With Thompson-Cannino, he has spoken at various venues including Washington and Lee University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Georgetown Law School, the Chicago Museum for Contemporary Photography’s Innocence Exhibit, and the Community March for Justice for Troy Anthony Davis in Savannah, Georgia.

Erin Torneo’s work has appeared in various publications including the Kyoto Journal, SEED, Cosmopolitan, Variety’s V-Life, the Independent, and indiewire. In 2007, she was awarded a nonfiction fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Picking Cotton will be her second book.

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