It is said, if you want something badly enough, the universe conspires to give it to you. All Jennifer Thompson from North Carolina had ever really wanted with every fiber of her being, was to bring to justice the man who had raped and shattered her, emotionally and psychologically, way back on July 24th, 1984. And her single-minded determination to have him put away, paid off, when in an intensively redemptive moment, she had decisively pointed him out to a courtroom jury, resulting in him being convicted of a crime she could never forgive him for. It was as if divine retribution had finally stepped in….except that, it was also a crime, that he was innocent of.

Scarred at her brutal violation, 22 year-old Jennifer Thompson’s unhesitant identification of a man whose features she was convinced she could never possibly mistake, turned out to be the cause of a then 22 year-old man Ronald Cotton, losing more than a decade of his life to the resultant wrongful incarceration.

In May 1995, after having more than 10 years of his prime lost to human error and a flawed legal procedural system, divine justice seemed to intervene, when based on his persistent appeals, fellow-inmate and strikingly similar featured Bobby Poole was convicted of the crime, and Cotton himself was finally exonerated on the basis of D.N.A analysis, in a triumph of legal justice and forensic medicine.

Exonerated Cotton however, was the merciful angel of forgiveness who held no grudges against the woman, who he believed had made an honest mistake. Not only did they strike an extraordinary friendship, but also turned crusaders-in-arms for the cause of judicial reform of identification procedures. Their efforts saw changes effected all over USA as well as N. Carolina in particular, and the release of the commemorative anniversary publication of the stirring best-seller “Picking Cotton” about both their trials and tribulations.