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Thursday, May 10, 2012

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law Only Protect Whites Who Pull The Trigger.


Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother of three facing 20 years in prison for firing what her family said was a warning shot at her abusive husband, is anything but a victim, said the state prosecutor who oversaw the case.
“She was angry” when she fired the shot, State Attorney Angela B. Corey told HuffPost. “She was not in fear.”
Alexander, 31, scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, was convicted by the same state attorney's office prosecuting the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death in February by a neighborhood watch volunteer. Both cases have stirred controversy surrounding Florida's Stand Your Ground gun law, which allows citizens wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves. Alexander invoked the law in her unsuccessful defense to aggravated assault charges filed against her in August 2010. Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is using it against the second-degree murder charge he faces in Martin's death.
Alexander’s family and a growing legion of her supporters have decried her prosecution by Corey’s office, saying that Alexander is an example of someone standing her ground. Her husband, Rico Gray, 36, admitted in court documents to beating, choking and punching women, including Alexander. "I got five baby-mamas and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one," Gray said in a deposition.
The couple's battle in 2010 left Alexander cornered in the couple’s Jacksonville home. She ran into the garage to escape and was trapped behind a jammed door, she said in court documents. She said she grabbed the gun she kept in the garage, returned to the house and, when Gray threatened to kill her, fired a single shot to ward him off.
Gray fled the home with his two sons and called the police. Alexander was arrested and eventually convicted of three counts of aggravated assault. A judge last weekrejected her appeal for a new trial. She faces sentencing under a Florida law that imposes a mandatory minimum 20-year prison term for certain gun crimes.

Corey said her office considered all the details of the case before moving forward with Alexander’s prosecution. She said the facts don’t support Alexander’s self-defense claim. Just before Alexander went into the garage and retrieved her pistol, she told Gray, “I got something for your ass,” Corey said.

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