Blacklisted NewsThis story is unbelievable. A woman who, acting in self-defense, shot a warning shot in the vicinity of her husband, was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012. She is in the process of appealing however, on the grounds that the judge inexplicably made her bare the burden of proof. What’s worse, the prosecution now wants to give her 60 years in prison because her husband had two of his children with him at the time of the warning shot.
From Reason:
In a few months, Marissa Alexander, the Jacksonville, Florida, woman who received a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence in 2012 for firing a gun during a fight with her abusive husband, will have a second chance to make her case that she was acting in self-defense. Alexander, who says she fired a warning shot because she was afraid her husband would seriously injure or kill her, won a second trial by arguing on appeal that Circuit Judge James Daniel erroneously imposed the burden of proof on her in his jury instructions. But thanks to another decision by the same appeals court, Alexander’s prison term if she is convicted this time around could be three times as long as the one she originally received—effectively a life sentence for actions that injured no one.
Alexander, who was freed on bail last November after 21 months behind bars, is charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because her husband was accompanied by two of his children during the confrontation. Under Florida’s notoriously harsh sentencing rules for crimes involving guns, each of those counts carries a 20-year term. Daniel made the terms concurrent, since all three charges arose from the same act. But last year the First District Court of Appeal ruled that state law “expressly authorizes consecutive mandatory minimum sentences” in such a situation.
So, a woman, acting in self-defense, fires a weapon purposely avoiding any human targets, no one is killed, no one gets hurt and the State of Florida is demanding that she spend 60 years in prison for it? Seriously, what is happening?
Much like the Tennessee student who was suspended for the innocent actions of his father, this is yet another example of “zero tolerance” rules punishing innocent people. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with zero tolerance, so long as they apply to real crimes, not fake ones.
Man the justice system is assinine.
That lady needs a jury of nullifiers. -imo
21 months in jail already?
Nobody harmed. Ain’t that enough?