{"id":14551,"date":"2012-05-14T16:18:22","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T20:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14551"},"modified":"2012-05-14T16:18:22","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T20:18:22","slug":"florida-wife-gets-20-years-for-firing-warning-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14551","title":{"rendered":"Florida Wife Gets 20 Years For Firing Warning Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Marissa Alexander<\/strong>, whose case brought allegations that Florida&#8217;s Stand Your Ground law is being unfairly applied, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last Friday after being convicted of three counts of aggravated assault after firing a warning shot during a dispute with her husband.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alexander<\/strong>, 31, claimed she fired a shot from a handgun into the wall to protect herself during a confrontation with her husband, <strong>Rico Gray<\/strong>, 36. Two children were with him when she fired a shot in his direction, and she was charged with three counts of aggravated assault.<\/p>\n<p>Her attorneys claimed self-defense and cited the state&#8217;s Stand Your Ground law, which gives people some protection from prosecution for using potentially deadly force in cases in which they feel their life is threatened.<\/p>\n<p>But a jury agreed with prosecutors that the law didn&#8217;t apply because she left during the argument, got a gun and returned to confront him.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, State Attorney <strong>Angela Corey<\/strong>, who is also handling the <strong>Zimmerman<\/strong> case, said she personally met with Alexander and reviewed the evidence in the case. She said she offered <strong>Alexander<\/strong> a three-year sentence before trial, despite the case qualifying for a 20-year minimum mandatory sentence.<\/p>\n<p>The case has sparked rallies on<strong> Alexander&#8217;s<\/strong> behalf, described a heated scene outside the courtroom after the sentencing:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Three years is not mercy and 20 years is not justice,&#8221; <strong>U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown<\/strong> told <strong>Corey<\/strong> in an animated confrontation in the hallway. &#8220;If there ever was a stand-your-ground case, it was this one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the beginning, not the end,&#8221; <strong>Brown<\/strong> said of <strong>Alexander<\/strong> case. &#8220;Clearly there is institutional racism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The law was made for people like <strong>Ms. Alexander<\/strong>,&#8221; <strong>Cobbin<\/strong> said. &#8220;They did not make it for people running around on the streets shooting people. They made it for women in their homes trying to defended themselves against abusive mean men.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marissa Alexander, whose case brought allegations that Florida&#8217;s Stand Your Ground law is being unfairly applied, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last Friday after being convicted of three counts of aggravated assault after firing a warning shot during a dispute with her husband. Alexander, 31, claimed she fired a shot from a handgun [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}