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Discussion: Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots
Member Since: 8/13/2012
Posts: 32,832
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Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots
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Updated on July 15, 2013 to reflect more of the testimony and aftermath of the case.
(CBS News) JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Florida woman who fired warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville had said the state's "Stand Your Ground" law should apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order.
CBS Affiliate WETV reports that Circuit Court Judge James Daniel handed down the sentence Friday.
Under Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing requirements Alexander couldn't receive a lesser sentence, even though she has never been in trouble with the law before. Judge Daniel said the law did not allow for extenuating or mitigating circumstances to reduce the sentence below the 20-year minimum.
"I really was crying in there," Marissa Alexander's 11-year-old daughter told WETV. "I didn't want to cry in court, but I just really feel hurt. I don't think this should have been happening."
Alexander was convicted of attempted murder after she rejected a plea deal for a three-year prison sentence. She said she did not believe she did anything wrong.
Complete Coverage: George Zimmerman trial and the Trayvon Martin case
She was recently denied a new trial after appealing to the judge to reconsider her case based on Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law. The law states that the victim of a crime does not have to attempt to run for safety and can immediately retaliate in self-defense.
Alexander's attorney said she was clearly defending herself and should not have to spend the next two decades behind bars.
Alexander's case has drawn support from domestic abuse advocates - and comparison to the case of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who has claimed self-defense in his fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
According to a sworn deposition taken in November 2010, Marissa Alexander's husband, Rico Gray, 36, said that on August 1, 2010, he and Alexander began fighting after he found text messages to Alexander's first husband on her phone. The two were already estranged - according to her father, Alexander had been living at her mother's since the birth of the couple's daughter nine days earlier, and Gray, a long-haul trucker, said he spent the night before in his tractor-trailer. Gray began calling her names, saying "If I can't have you, nobody going to have you," and blocking her from exiting the bathroom.
Alexander pushed past Gray and went into the garage where she got her gun from her car's glove compartment.
Gray told prosecutors in the deposition that Alexander came back into the house holding the weapon and told him to leave. He refused, and what happened next is somewhat unclear. In his deposition, Gray said "she shot in the air one time," prompting him and the children to run out the front door. But when Gray called 911 the day of the incident, he said "she aimed the gun at us and she shot."
In August 2011, a judge rejected a motion by Alexander's attorney to grant her immunity under the "Stand your Ground" law. According to the judge's order, "there is insufficient evidence that the Defendant reasonably believed deadly force was needed to prevent death or great bodily harm to herself," and that the fact that she came back into the home, instead of leaving out the front or back door "is inconsistent with a person who is in genuine fear for her life."
Alexander's case was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the Florida State's Attorney who is also prosecuting George Zimmerman. Alexander was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and because she discharged a firearm during the incident, the case fell under Florida's "10-20-life" law, enacted in 1999, which mandates a 20-year sentence for use of a gun during the commission of certain crimes.
Corey initially offered Alexander a three year deal if she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but according to CBS affiliate WTEV, Alexander did not believe she had done anything wrong, and rejected the plea. Her bet did not pay off: the jury in the case returned a guilty verdict in less than 15 minutes.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...warning-shots/
Wonder why she went to jail for not killing anyone and defending herself against her abusive husband while someone who stalked and killed an unarmed minor escaped jail? 
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Member Since: 8/18/2010
Posts: 7,401
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Ohhh, here we go.
All I can do is shake my damn head at this point.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 11/5/2011
Posts: 100,491
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Member Since: 9/22/2011
Posts: 9,178
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Old tea, but it's funny how she gets 20 years for a victimless crime (and arguably one in self-defense), while 2 child murderers are free.
Oh Florida.
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Member Since: 1/8/2012
Posts: 11,352
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Member Since: 5/6/2010
Posts: 35,158
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Member Since: 10/24/2010
Posts: 3,631
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 12,510
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Judging from why she felt she had to pull the gun in first place, I don't get how the Stand Your Ground law doesn't apply here and it does for the Zimmerman trial. The sexism and racism is real. 
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Member Since: 8/9/2012
Posts: 18,572
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She got "20" years because the jury decided her shot wasn't in self defense... and Zimmermans was?
Utter BS
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Member Since: 3/26/2012
Posts: 37,592
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She didn't even ****ing hit anyone 
The world is a ****ing mess and I'm pissed off that she has to suffer because she was defending herself.
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 13,978
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So if you kill someone you can get off with no jail time.. yet if you fire a warning shot not injuring anyone you get 20 years in jail. Makes sense.
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Member Since: 6/21/2012
Posts: 18,849
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No more justice is there!
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Banned
Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 9,414
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lol at the outrage
she put children in danger
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Member Since: 9/22/2011
Posts: 9,178
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Let's not forget about this case from late last year: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1209345
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A Florida man asked a group of teens at a gas station to turn down the loud music blaring from their car and, after an exchange of words, opened fire on the vehicle, killing a 17-year-old boy, authorities said.
Michael Dunn, 45, of Satellite Beach, has been charged with murder for the Friday slaying of Jordan Davis, 17, a black high school student from the Jacksonville area.
His lawyer said Dunn, who is white, thought he saw a gun and felt threatened during the incident, indicating that he may seek protection under the state’s controversial Stand Your Ground Law, according to local reports.
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Member Since: 5/4/2012
Posts: 12,811
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Thats not the entire story though.
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Member Since: 9/1/2012
Posts: 2,748
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This story is one of the most blatent misrepresentations by the media I've ever seen, all in the name of stirring up racial controversy. Here's the actual story
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After Alexander exited the bathroom and re-entered the master bedroom, Gray left the bedroom and headed to the living room where his sons were located. At that point, Alexander left the master bedroom, passing Gray, his two children, and the unobstructed front and back doors of the house on her way to the garage. Once in the garage, she retrieved a handgun from her vehicle’s glove box and then went back into the kitchen, where she “pointed it in the direction of all three [v]ictims.” Although Gray put his hands in the air, Alexander fired the gun, “nearly missing [Gray's] head” and sending a bullet “through the kitchen wall and into the ceiling in the living room.”
Gray and his sons fled the home and immediately called 911. Alexander stayed in the home and never called 911.
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She says she felt threatened, yet she went into the garage to where her vehicle was, grabbed a gun from the glove compartment and then returned to the house. This is the exact OPPOSITE of what you would be doing if you felt your life was in jeopardy. She claims the garage was not opening (which could not be supported with any evidence, as the door worked before and after the incident), but even if you accept that part of her story, there were several ways to exit the house by foot through doors and she instead chose to get her gun and go back to the house.
She pointed a gun at the man and he put his hands up, but she fired anyways in the direction of her husband and their kids. Luckily the bullet went past them and winded up in the wall. She never called 911, her husband did.
That's not even all. When she returned to the residence a few months after this incident to drop off her kids, they got into an argument and her husband was left with several injuries before she fled the house without calling police. When the police met her at her house, she claimed that she had not gone to his house at all, which was a lie, and she later told police that she was there but that he attacked her first. She had no visible injuries.
There's even more when you read the article. The way the media is portraying this case is absolutely appalling and is doing nothing but stirring up unnecessary racial tensions.
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Member Since: 6/6/2012
Posts: 25,442
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All this Florida stuff is making me nervous for when I go there for 5 days in August...
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/2/2012
Posts: 7,414
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Florida...sis..
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Member Since: 11/4/2010
Posts: 34,287
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Florida, you done goofed too many times.
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