Picking Cotton

Chris Brauns links to a powerful story that ran on 60 minutes recently. He writes:

Chapter 1 of my book Unpacking Forgiveness begins with the story of Jennifer Thompson. The quick summary is that Jennifer Thompson “picked Cotton” - - that is she identified Ronald Cotton as the man who raped her, when in fact he didn’t really commit the crime.

I began my book with this story because it was one of the most amazing stories of forgiveness that I read (and I’ve read a bunch of them) and, because it illustrates so much biblical truth about forgiveness. Not only did Jennifer Thompson have to unpack the baggage of being raped - - but she had to live with sending the wrong man to prison for over a decade.

How do you unpack forgiveness with a man that you wrongly sent to prison for some of the best years of his life?

There was an excellent special about Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton on 60 Minutes tonight. I would highly recommend watching it. The two of them also co-authored a book Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption. It was recently released and I’ve not yet read it. But, I am looking forward to it.

Click over to his site to watch the video.