In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, many media outlets have erroneously focused on Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which was never invoked by the defense. In fact, Zimmerman declined the opportunity to seek a Stand Your Ground hearing earlier this year....Note the difference: Alexander had already fled the scene and then returned, whereas Zimmerman had simply followed Martin around (again, this was stupid of him), and only pulled a gun and shot Martin when he had already been attacked. At this point, flight was entirely out of the question.
This discussion of Stand Your Ground has allowed to the media to revive the story of Marissa Alexander, a black woman from Jacksonville, Florida who "only fired a warning shot trying to protect herself from an abusive husband" and who unsuccessfully tried to invoke the law in her defense....
Alexander claims she felt her life was at risk, but she left the house and went into the garage, retrieved a handgun from her car and returned to the kitchen where her husband (Rico Gray) and his two children were located. Stand Your Ground does not require that you attempt to flee, but she already had. At this point, it no longer applied. She then fired the "mere warning shot", which in many accounts was aimed at the ceiling, but the court documents indicate "barely missed Gray's head".
Bonus for pointing out the ridiculousness of Florida's sentencing laws, which apparently required a minimum sentence (10-20 years) for Alexander since she fired the gun (aggravated assault), but which would have not required this sentence if the bullet had actually hit and killed somebody (manslaughter).
No comments:
Post a Comment