5. The Wrong Man: What causes misidentification?

Bad People

BBC

True Crime

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A man breaks into Jennifer Thompson’s apartment, severs her phone wires and rapes her. Jennifer studies his face, hoping to remember enough details so that she can identify him later. In a police line-up, Jennifer is able to point out Ronald Cotton as her rapist and in two separate trials he is convicted of rape and burglary. He is sentenced to life in prison plus fifty-four years. It seems like the case is resolved. There’s only one problem: Cotton is innocent. On this episode of Bad People, presenters Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen discuss why we should all be weary of our memory when identifying a person of a different race. Warning: This episode contains strong language and references to sexual violence. Archive credits: This episode contains audio from CBS News and CDI (La Ciudad de Ias Ideas) International Festival. CREDITS: Presenters: Dr. Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen Producer: Louisa Field Assistant Producer: Simona Rata Music: Matt Chandler Series Editor: Rami Tzabar Commissioning Producer: Hannah Rose Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins Commissioning Editor: Jason Phipps Bad People is a BBC Audio Science Production for BBC Sounds #BadPeople_BBC

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.2	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know I also know that comedy is really
0:24.4	subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer
0:29.6	from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you
0:36.2	fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:41.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:45.0	This episode contains strong language and references to extreme violence.
0:50.0	Don't take the Lord's name in vain.
0:54.0	We have to find an alternative for you.
0:57.0	Oh, golly gosh!
0:59.0	Oh, golly gosh!
1:00.0	Darn!
1:02.0	Jebus. You could also just swear in Danish and no one will ever know how about that.
1:07.3	Saitany hell. That's so bad.
1:10.8	Oh, that sounded like you were just like calling Satan.
1:13.4	What was this?
1:16.4	Say, Sainichaival.
1:18.4	Well it's Satan in hell, so you're right.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.