"Choose to be a better man," Shannan Harris told the man who killed her 10-year-old daughter.
The married mother of five tearfully stood less than 10 feet from an expressionless Kareame Amin Cotton Sr. in a Pulaski County courtroom Tuesday and told him that she had forgiven him for the drunken-driving car crash 21/2 years ago that devastated her family. Her father-in-law also was killed in the crash.
"Deep and true and honest forgiveness ... that's what's going to heal me," she said, saying that she wished he would have taken responsibility sooner for the New Year's Day 2013 collision rather than "dragging" her family with him through the court system.
"We all make mistakes and we all make bad decisions, but you took my baby away from me and you took my father-in-law away," she said.
Cotton, 39, accepted a 20-year prison sentence with a guilty plea to two counts of negligent homicide for the deaths of Maci Leighann Harris and the girl's grandfather, the Rev. David Edward Harris, 64.
He also pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree battery for the other people seriously injured in the collision: David Harris' wife, Christine Elizabeth Harris; the couple's son and Maci's father, Paul David Harris, 45; and her 13-year-old half brother, Caleb.
Cotton, whose son, 12-year-old Kareame Cotton Jr., suffered minor injuries in the collision, also pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment.
Circuit Judge Leon Johnson imposed the 20-year sentence at the recommendation of deputy prosecutor Kelly Ward.
In her victim impact statement to the judge, Shannan Harris recalled how she tried to console Kareame Jr. that night, saying the boy's father had crawled over the boy and left him behind to get out of his wrecked car.
"I feel sorry for you, and I feel sorry for your son," she told Cotton. "You're a blessed man, and you don't even realize it."
Harris also recalled her daughter's own efforts at forgiveness, telling the judge how Maci had stood up to a bullying classmate just two months before she was killed.
Maci told the boy that she knew he only picked on her because someone had bullied him. Her daughter urged the boy to turn to Jesus, Harris said.
Cotton also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor escape charge for getting out of the patrol car of the state trooper who took him into custody after he failed field sobriety tests at the crash site on Interstate 30 west, near the Scott Hamilton Drive exit.
According to police reports, Cotton, driving a 1999 Chevrolet Suburban, rear-ended the Harris family's 2000 Toyota, driven by Paul Harris.
Cotton's SUV had just been involved in a three-vehicle collision on the highway in which a 2-month-old infant from Texas was killed.
Blood tests showed Cotton's blood-alcohol level was 0.21 percent when the legal limit is 0.08 percent. Cotton's attorney, John Collins, successfully argued that the results should be suppressed because the blood sample from which they were derived was taken by force because authorities were running out of time to get a warrant that would have allowed testing.
Cotton said he was sorry for the crash, calling it a "tragic accident."
"I just want to apologize to everybody," he told the judge. "I'm sorry for this tragic accident."
And Cotton's father, Tony Cotton, told the court their whole family shares the grief and sorrow but that his son did not deliberately hurt anyone.
"I would like for the court to know and everybody to know Kareame is not an animal, and he's not a bad man. He was involved in an accident," the senior Cotton said. "He made some bad decisions with some bad results."
Metro on 07/29/2015