Picking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption

Throughout Picking Cotton, Jennifer is nearly overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame. Initially, it is the shame that she comes to see as typical in people who have been raped. They wonder if they could have done something differently, or even, as is the case with the woman she meets after one of her talks, if they deserved their rapes. The shame is sometimes acute enough that women do not report their rapes, preferring to bury their feelings rather than speak about the experience and let other people know. After Ronald is released, Jennifer is not freed from her guilt, but experiences a new form of it: she must now live with the guilt of taking away 11 years of a man’s life. This cost is most obvious to her when she meets Raven, who never would have been born if Ronald had remained in prison. Jennifer is unable to assuage her own guilt until she begins working with Ronald, volunteering at SCAN, and learning more about the unreliability of witness testimony. 

Jennifer’s testimony—and her identification of Ronald in the lineup—is the prosecution’s key evidence again him, and the proof that leads to his incarceration. But it is not evidence at all, given that Ronald was not involved in the rape.