![]() Eyewitness misidentification played a role in more than three-quarters of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing, and Thompson-Cannino and Cotton now travel the country telling audiences how it can happen. But she was wrong.ĭNA testing exonerated Cotton after he had served more than a decade in prison. She told the jury she was certain, and Cotton was sentenced to life. Thompson-Cannino, who is white, helped police draw up a composite sketch, and then she viewed photographs and identified Ronald Cotton as the rapist. When an African-American attacker broke into her home and raped her in 1984, she made a conscious effort to note the perpetrator’s features so she could identify him later. ![]() Jennifer Thompson-Cannino (above) knows first-hand how a misidentification can happen. More than one-third of these wrongful convictions were caused by a cross-racial identification. And statistics on the 218 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing to date support the evidence. ![]() ![]() Social science research has shown that eyewitness misidentifications are more likely to happen when the perpetrator and witness are of different racial backgrounds. ![]()
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