Tag Archives: SB 756

I Sent The Wrong Man To Jail

by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino

March of 1995 began like any other month for me.  The days were filled with chasing soon to be five year-old triplets, washing hundreds of pounds of laundry, kissing skinned knees and picking up toys, until the phone rang.  Captain Mike Gauldin, the detective who worked my case after a man broke into my apartment when I was a twenty-two year-old college student and raped me at knifepoint in Burlington, N.C. wanted to come see me with Rob Johnson, then the assistant D.A. of Alamance County.

They arrived before lunch and we sat on the deck enjoying the spring sunshine.  We talked about the weather, the kids, current events, and then quickly the topic changed. Ronald Cotton, the man sent away for life for attacking me, wanted a DNA test. They needed new blood drawn because my sample from the eleven year-old rape kit had deteriorated.

I had already sat through two trials and I was furious, but I didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go to the lab right now,” I responded. Within hours Mike Gauldin and Rob Johnson were headed to the SBI labs with my vial of blood. I knew the tests would show what I had known all along: that Ronald Cotton was a monster. It was Ronald Cotton who threatened to kill me, who had chased me through the rain that night while I fled for my life.  And it was Ronald Cotton who I saw every night in my nightmares, who I prayed God would have killed, and who I hated each and every day of the last eleven years.

But when Mike Gauldin and Rob Johnson stood in my kitchen in June of 1995, they told me we were wrong.  It was not Ronald’s DNA found in the rape kit, in fact, it was a man named Bobby Poole, a serial rapist who had attacked and raped over a half dozen other women that summer of 1984.

With the delivery of the DNA results came an overwhelming shame and guilt. My mind began to question everything I had believed in. I pulled away from the world as I knew it; I had no answers.  Over four thousand days of a man’s life were gone and nothing I could do would ever change that.  Eleven birthdays, eleven Christmas mornings-gone. I placed the burden on my shoulders and began the slow process of moving through my days.

By the spring of 1997, the psychological toll forced me to act. In a small church no more then a few miles from where I had been brutally raped, I met Ronald and struggled for words I could say to him. How completely inadequate “I’m sorry” seemed.  As Ronald and his new wife, Robbin, came into the room I began to cry and shake. “Ronald, if I spent the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am it wouldn’t be enough,” I said. Ronald immediately took my hands and replied, “I forgive you.  I want you to be happy and live a good life.  Don’t look over your shoulders thinking I will be there because I won’t.”

For the first time, I looked into Ronald Cotton’s eyes and saw a compassionate man who gave me a gift of healing by forgiving me. I also saw a victim of a flawed system. If California’s Senate Bill 756 can help fix that system by putting better practices and procedures into place for eyewitness identification, we reduce the risk of wrongful convictions and mistakes like the one I made. A mistake I never saw coming.

Jennifer Thompson-Cannino lives in Winston-Salem, N.C.  She is currently working on PICKING COTTON with Ronald Cotton and writer Erin Torneo.  It will be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2008.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s Chance to Lead

By John Van de Kamp

Health care reform hasn’t made it to the Governor’s desk this year, but 3 crucial public safety bills have. Governor Schwarzenegger has the opportunity to sign landmark legislation that would help prevent wrongful convictions in California, and make this state a leader in addressing a serious nationwide problem.

How serious is the problem? When the innocent go to prison, the guilty go free. That is a very serious public safety problem. And it happens more often then most people think.

Just recently, Stephen Colbert interviewed the 200th DNA exoneree, Jerry Miller. Colbert gave him a card on behalf of “society” saying “Sorry.” Here in California, Herman Atkins spent 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Here is Herman Atkins’ story:

Harold Hall spent more than 19 years in prison, and was nearly sentenced to death. Over 200 other wrongfully convicted men and women have been exonerated by DNA evidence, but all too often these errors could have been avoided. Now Governor Schwarzenegger has a chance to show Colbert and the nation what we can do: California can do more than saying
“Sorry.”

Commentators from both sides of the aisle are supporting these bills for just the same reasons: they address glaring problems that need repair, and they protect public safety.  By signing these bills, Governor Schwarzenegger will help law enforcement solve and prosecute crimes, while also protecting the innocent from wrongful conviction.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a group established by the Senate to study the most serious problems with the criminal justice system, recommended all three of the reform measures now before the Governor.

In 2006 I was asked by the Senate to Chair the Commission, no doubt because of my curriculum vitae, which included terms as California’s Attorney General, L.A. County D.A. and as California’s Central District’s first Federal Public Defender.  So I have some perspective from both sides of the court room.  I agreed to take on the assignment with the stipulation that I would receive support to balance the Commission so that all sides of the criminal justice systems had strong and fair representation.  The result is a Commission whose members include law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys (public and private), a victim advocate and public members.

The Commission has issued a series of reports dealing with Eyewitness Identification, False Confessions, Jail House Informants Testimony, DNA Evidence Processing, and Forensic Evidence.  Now we’re looking at Prosecutorial and Defense Misconduct and Incompetence.

The Legislature has passed three bills dealing with the Commission’s early
recommendations:  SB 511, 609 and 756 represent the most basic and most urgently needed changes.

  • Senate Bill 511 (Alquist) will require the electronic recording of police interrogation in cases involving homicides and other violent felonies.
  • Senate Bill 756 (Ridley-Thomas) will require the appointment of a task force to draft voluntary guidelines for the conduct of police line-ups and photo arrays to increase the accuracy of eyewitness identifications.
  • Senate Bill 609 (Romero) will require the corroboration of testimony by jailhouse informants.

    Some states and jurisdictions already have similar laws in response to the notorious Duke Lacrosse scandal, North Carolina’s Governor (and former Attorney General) Easley  signed bills similar to SB 511 and 756.  However, Governor Schwarzenegger would be the first to enact all 3 reforms at once.

    He chose to veto bills similar to SB 511 and 756 last year, but made it clear in his veto message that he appreciates the need for reform. Now that the bills have been rewritten to address last year’s concerns, there is no reason to put public safety and the lives of innocent men and women on hold. This is Governor Schwarzenegger’s chance to sign landmark legislation this year, to protect the public, protect the innocent and be the reformer California, and the country, needs.

    John Van de Kamp is the chair of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice and formerly served as California Attorney General, Los Angeles District Attorney, and as the first Federal Public Defender for the Central District.