You Have the Right to Remain Innocent

by James J. Duane

Ronald Cotton.62 He spent more than ten years in a North Carolina prison for a pair of rapes that he did not commit, and he would have been there for the rest of his life if he had not been ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence that proved his innocence and established the identity of the guilty man. When he first learned that the police were looking for him, he foolishly did what most innocent people do under those circumstances: he went down to the police station to meet with them, answer their questions, and attempt to clear things up. He did not take the time to kiss his mother and girlfriend goodbye, because he never imagined he wouldn’t be alone with them again for more than a decade. When he was told by the officers about the date of the sexual assaults, he helpfully volunteered some details about his whereabouts, what he had been doing that night, and who he was with. He even invited the police to check with those individuals to verify his story. Unfortunately for Cotton, he had gotten his dates mixed up, and he’d actually told the police about where he was on another night. As a result, when the police checked with his supposed “alibi witnesses,” they were not able to confirm Cotton’s story but in fact contradicted it. What he thought would be helpful evidence for his defense had now only made things worse, further arousing the suspicions of the police. After they came back to confront Cotton with the seeming holes in his story, he realized that he had made an inn...