Posted on 07/06/2006 12:36:26 PM PDT by radar101
Salem - A jury deliberated just two hours on Thursday before finding an Iraqi war veteran and former Marine of the Year acted in self-defence when he fired a shotgun into a group of club-goers outside his home, injuring two people.
The jury acquitted marine sergeant Daniel Cotnoir, a 34-year-old reservist, of two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in the shooting last August.
Cotnoir had rejected an earlier plea deal. He could have faced up to 20 years in prison.
He stood stoically and showed no emotions as the verdicts were read.
Prosecutor John Dawley urged jurors not to "give him extra points because he was in Iraq."
"He is basically a good guy," Dawley said.
Lapse of judgement
"But this is not a case about making someone a bad guy. Good people do bad things.
"Good people occasionally have monumental lapses of judgment."
Defence attorney Robert Lewin asked jurors to put themselves in Cotnoir's shoes, noting a bottle was thrown through Cotnoir's bedroom window at about 03:00 while his children slept upstairs.
"You really have to try to put yourself in his room that night," Lewin said. "How do you think you'd feel?"
Lewin also pointed to a prior incident during which someone fired a gun at Cotnoir's house.
"Consider not only what happened that morning, but also the history of violence in that parking lot," he said.
Cotnoir, who served eight months in Iraq in 2004, helped create a mortician's unit for the marine corps, for which he was credited in winning the Marine of the Year award.
So it's in the South African News, but not the US news?
Figures.
Good for this Marine of the Year. I'm glad it was decided his way.
He'll be lucky not to get his clocked cleaned in a civil trial, and I hope he does.
He should be awarded Citizenship award of the year..
He fired a shotgun into a crowd on the sidewalk.
He was retaliating, not protecting.
He's an idiot and he's lucky he's not spending the next ten years in prison.
I see SALEM, but is this in U.S.?
Well, this didn't happen today, but last Thursday, and was covered just fine in the MSM.
See this Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-32,GGLD:en&q=jury+acquits
The South Africa media just published it today.
Sorry to disappoint, but it was covered at the time it happened.
The jury heard the facts and decided he was not guilty.You on the otherhand do not know the entire facts of the case declare him guilty!What does that say about you?
He fired a shotgun into an unarmed crowd.
OJ was acquitted, proving that there are those out there who won't convict on ANYTHING.
He deserves his ass handed to him in civil court.
A civil jury might find differently.
You might want to ask the Admin Moderator to remove the parenthetical statement, since it's not true. Never mind...I'll ping him.
"I see SALEM, but is this in U.S.?"
Yup. It's Salem, MA. It was covered last week in the news...when it happened. The story posted here is a week late.
A little Googling would have discovered that.
Did the crowd begin to disperse after the bottle was thrown through his window? Did someone apologize to him?
Or did he have every reason to believe that this was just the beginning of a potentially devastating sequence of events?
Having seen firsthand how drunken crowds can behave, sending a message that you will not allow yourself or your children to be further victimized can be necessary.
Good. Now pray that our Marines and Naval medic are acquitted in Camp Pendleton as well.
"Sending a message" would have been firing over the heads of the crowd.
He fired INTO the crowd.
Besides, at least in Texas, a gunowner is in violation of the law for "sending a message". One is allowed to use a weapon lethally only if one is in fear for his life.
I can see that he would be nervous, but he overreacted by shooting indiscriminately into a crowd after the bottle came through the window. The homer jury let him off.
He said he was in fear of his family's safety when he grabbed a shotgun and fired a shot into what he said was a clear area. The shell struck a curb and shattered into fragments, striking Kelvin Castillo, 21, and Lissette Cumba, 16.
1. At the time, he was unable to identify the assailant who threw a bottle..
2. At the time of the shooting, nobody in that crowd posed a threat to him. Maybe if he has shot somebody specific, as they were about to throw a bottle. But shooting INTO A CROWD because a bottle had already been thrown was just stupid. Again, he didn't identify a specific threat, just an unruly crowd.
3. He didn't get an apology, so he shoots INTO A CROWD?
4. A bottle thrown through a window MAY have been the beginning of a "potentially devastating sequence of events", but shooting into a crowd was DEFINITELY a "potentially devastating sequence of events". Property damage vs potential loss of life. He made a piss-poor decision and nearly lost his freedom because of it.
If DA didn't have a real case, they wouldn't have pressed it. Nobody wants to take a poster boy into court on flimsy charges and evidence.
He dodged jail time because of his service to his country. Maybe he caught a decent break. But he deserves to have his ass handed to him in civil court.
That's what he said.
The end result was that he FIRED INTO A CROWD.
Any responsible gun owner knows that you're responsible for every round you fire, wether it's a clean shot or wether it bounces off a curb.
He claimed he fired into a "clear area" and the two people injured apparently sustained ricochet injuries which would support his claim.
With his firearms training I'm going to guess as well that he could have easily killed someone if he was looking to take a life.
I'm going to guess that firing over their heads was even more dangerous, since the streets of Salem are, in places like the downtown, relatively narrow with multistory apartments.
It would have been even worse if he'd fired over their heads and hit someone sleeping in the uppermost story of the three-family across the street.
Were I a juror and I had a choice of letting him go or putting him away for 20 years I'd find it a pretty tough decision.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.