A man who killed his wife and her two daughters in 2005 was sentenced Friday to life without parole on each count.
Chad Cottrell pleaded guilty in March to three counts of murder in the October 2005 slayings of Trisha Cottrell, 29, Brittany Williams, 12, and Victoria Williams, 10.
According to the local reports, he's supposed to have molested both step-daughters prior to killing them. One report said he killed his wife with a baseball bat and then molested and shot the girls. At a certain point he was quoted as having said about his wife, "She got what she deserved."
What could make a man that angry? What separates a man like this from other men? I would imagine he's not all that different from the guy who slaps his wife every once in a while, when she asks for it, of course. Those wives usually learn how to survive. Maybe Mrs. Cottrell didn't have those skills.
And let's not fail to mention that he owned a gun. Up until the time of the triple rape-murder when he annihilated his entire family of its female members, he must have been exercising his god-given right to own firearms. Besides being a basic human right, it's in the Constitution, isn't that what I keep hearing?
And, what do you think of the sentencing? There was plenty of talk about the death penalty; some reports even had the killer asking for it.
The victims' family wept openly during the proceedings. Hamilton Superior Court Judge William J. Hughes called Cottrell, who had repeatedly asked to be given the death penalty and had admitted molesting both children, the "worst of the worst."
"Because he himself so thoroughly sees death as the preferred sentence, life imprisonment without parole is, beyond any reasonable doubt, the most appropriate sentence for the worst of the worst defendants," Hughes said.
Since when do judges use this reasoning for deciding the appropriate sentence? It sounds bizarre to me that a Superior Court Judge could say something like this. I can understand the one we discussed the other day where the question was whether the dependent continues to pose a threat even behind bars. Although I oppose capital punishment in any case, at least that reasoning makes sense. But the idea of not giving him the death penalty because that's what he prefers, I don't know. What's your opinion?
Please feel free to leave a comment.
And let's not fail to mention that he owned a gun. Up until the time of the triple rape-murder when he annihilated his entire family of its female members, he must have been exercising his god-given right to own firearms. Besides being a basic human right, it's in the Constitution, isn't that what I keep hearing?
ReplyDeleteWhat is so hard to understand about the fact that keeping and bearing arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual, and rape/murder most assuredly is not?
There are over 80 million gun owners in the U.S., and somewhere around 15 thousand homicides (not all of which are murder, of course) committed with guns every year. In other words, even if every shooting homicide was committed by a different gun owner (no multiple murders, in other words), that means that 99.98125% of gun owners won't kill anyone in any given year. That rather overwhelming percentage goes up even higher when you figure in the fact that some of the gun owners who do kill account for more than one of the killings. It goes up still higher if one counts only murders, rather than all homicides.
How many demographic groups can you come up with who have a higher rate of not murdering people?
By the way, the last comment was something of a departure for me. I don't generally deal in stats, because I consider them to be largely irrelevant. If the stats somehow bore out the ridiculous idea that gun owners were more violent than non-gun owners--if, indeed, the stats were the exact opposite of those I mentioned, and that 99.98125% of gun owners were killers--that would have no effect on my fundamental right to own firearms (or on that of anyone else who has not shown himself to be so untrustworthy as to deserve forcible disarmament).
ReplyDeleteOne's rights are one's own, and are not predicated on the actions of anyone else.
45, Just like your comment about the right-wing abortion killers, you're doing an awful job of manipulating the stats here too. I caught your disclaimer about not liking or needing stats to maintain your position, but just to make it straight, I'll say this.
ReplyDeleteIt's not 15,000, it's about 30,000. You forgot the suicides and accidents. If we're talking about violent gun deaths, let's consider all of them.
Plus, you're leaving out all the non-fatal shootings, which must number, what, 100,000, 200,000? Many of them resulted in spinal chord injuries or brain damage, you know all those guys shot in the head that survived as vegetables. You don't hear much about them, but to be fair we have to count them too.
Plus, let's throw in for fun, all the aggressive (criminal?) brandishing of weapons which didn't result in a shooting. I'd bet some people could be traumatized by that kind of thing. For sure the "lawful" gun owners who do that are not of the responsible kind, don't you agree?
When you add up all the gun violence, including the non-fatal and including the non-shooting, your 99% looks more like 80% or 70%.
This is the problem I'm always talking about. If it doesn't apply to you, fine, just stop twisting and manipulating to make out it doesn't exist. You see, when you do that, you become part of the problem.
I left out suicides because I don't see the relevance. Someone's Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms is to be trampled because that right might make it easier for him to kill himself?(!) C'mon--you can do better than that.
ReplyDeleteAccidental shooting deaths, according to the WISQARS injury mortality report, numbered 642 for 2006 (last year for which stats are currently available. 80 million gun owners (averaging more than 3 guns apiece); fewer than 650 accidental shooting deaths in a year--do you really want to argue that point?
As for me "leaving out" criminal use of firearms in which no one was fatally shot--you're the one who made the point about "triple rape-murder" (the impression I get from the article is that it was a double rape/triple murder, but I don't want to quibble)--if you wanted the discussion to be about evil behavior with firearms that isn't murder (or any other kind of killing), you should have done so. The fact that I didn't figure those stats into my calculations isn't "manipulation" of the stats.
Have you considered getting someone else to argue your side for you? You don't seem to be doing too well. Granted, facts and logic don't leave you much to work with, but I'm almost starting to feel a little embarrassed for you.
"It's not 15,000, it's about 30,000. You forgot the suicides and accidents."
ReplyDeleteHe's not forgetting anything Mike.
Suicides and accidents are NOT murders nor homicides. Besides, you can add suicides & accidents if you'd like and the data STILL isn't in your favor.
I wish you guys would stop using the phrase, "Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all it was nothing of the sort for two centuries. You guys are just repeating it so often you're starting to believe it yourselves.
Secondly, the whole point is you like guns, period. You like guns and you don't want anything to interfere with that. In order to justify such a selfish pursuit, you need to deny that there are problems related to them or downplay their prevalence. You wouldn't want to be inconvenienced by laws that would save lives.
I wish you guys would stop using the phrase, "Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms."
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you're not the only advocate of forcible citizen disarmament tyranny who would like me to stop saying that. Unfortunately for you and your ilk, there's an amendment before the Second, which protects my right to do so.
Mike B- You speak as if Heller magically created the 2A as an individual right. It was recognized as a fundamental, individual right for the majority of America's history.
ReplyDeleteHell, the "collective rights" interpretation of the 2A is a relatively new phenomenon.