Written by DAVID KEYES

February 02, 2005

On Monday in Kentucky, 23-year-old Joshua Cottrell, who was put on trial for strangling a man and then stuffing the body into a suitcase, was convicted by a jury of his peers. Mr. Cottrell, of course, admitted openly to every one of the crimes he was accused of, but that is apparently beside the point as far as his jury is concerned. His final charge (in addition to several minor ones)? Not murder, but second-degree manslaughter.

Never mind the fact, of course, that his victim was a 36-year-old gay man who apparently made a pass at the accused in his motel shortly before the crimes transpired.

Now before this becomes one of those anti-hate crime advocacy stories that gets bombarded by "you-read-too-much-into-the-gay-connection" comments, let me remind everyone that all of the above is recorded testimony. Simple facts are simple facts: a man was killed and disposed of in an utterly heinous manner because of a mere sexual connotation. The admission is there, the physical evidence, everything. Cottrell's own adoptive aunt testified earlier on, in fact, that she specifically heard her nephew talk about planning the murder, too -- about luring the unsuspected victim into his motel room for the purpose of doing away with him. And if that's not the tip of the iceberg, then consider also the fact that the accused himself actually said he would gladly commit the act over again if he could.

But what of the verdict? Apparently jurors fell for a claim that Cottrell murdered 36-year-old Richie Phillips in "self-defense," which his attorneys pushed on them by reminding them that state law allows victims of potential rape and sodomization to "fight back." And, of course, you just gotta love their other line of defense: "This kid is not a robber. Yes, he did some very inappropriate things with the body... But what set it all in motion, he was privileged to do. What set it in motion were the actions of a 36-year-old man."

Give me a flippin' break! That's no better than saying a man should be acquitted of raping a woman because she was begging for it.

No matter how you slice or dice the entire sorted mess, this guy got away with murder, pure and simple. And because state law limits the potential sentencing of a conviction like this, Cottrell could be eligible to hit the streets via parole in two-and-a-half years.

Where is the justice in this? How can the family of the victim ever hope to heal now? And what in the world were those men and women on the jury thinking when they opted out of a murder verdict and came back with something so obviously less? By handing down an opportunity for this sadistic creature to eventually walk our streets again, Kentucky sends a demoralizing perception that it is somehow less of a crime to harm those who live with a different sexual orientation.

So much for acceptance, eh?