A Personal Experience: Overcoming Victimization and Exonerations

• In Event: Original Trauma and Judicial Disasters: Original Crime Victims’ Experiences with Wrongful Convictions in the USA

Abstract

Jennifer Thompson, co-author of Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, will share her personal experiences a rape survivor whose case resulted in the wrongful conviction of Ronald Cotton. Ms. Thompson has been a nationally prominent advocate for justice system reforms, especially eye witness identification procedures, to prevent wrongful convictions, abolish the death penalty, and provide improved services to all victims of wrongful convictions. Her personal experiences illuminate important themes of trauma, truth, and healing and advocacy. Ms. Thompson is the Founder and President of the Board for the non-profit organization Healing Justice, whose mission is to provide restorative justice-based support to original crime victims and exonerated individuals in wrongful convictions. Ms. Thompson is a recipient of the Special Courage Award from the United States Department of Justice (2015) for her advocacy work promoting improved justice system practice.

Author

• Jennifer Thompson, Healing Justice