Oscar Pistorius: Judge Delivering Verdict Live

[TMW2010]

There's an interesting book, Picking Cotton which tells the true-life story of mis-identificatin which put a man in prison for a long time. The relation that ultimately developed between the accused and the accusor shows that there are lots of folks much nicer than I am.

I use Picking Cotton as part of my section on memory in the Psychology class I teach. Witness misidentification of a suspect is not something I'd call truly rare, but the story behind what happened to Mr. Cotton goes way beyond that; especially when he identifies the real rapist while in jail, gets a new trial, and gets reconvicted with an even longer sentence. It really makes you question the reliability of your memory.