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Marisa Alexander, the thirty year-old mother of three sentenced to twenty years in prison for firing a warning shot to fend off an attack form her husband.
From The Grio/Joy-Ann Reid:
Marissa Alexander’s daughter turns three today but there is not plan for a birthday party. Instead, the 31-year-old remains in a Duval County Florida jail awaiting the latest hearing in her case.
Last spring, Alexander was sentenced to a mandatory 20-year sentence under Florida’s 10-20-life statute, after a jury took 12 minutes to convict her of three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm for firing a warning shot over the head of her husband, Rico Gray, who Alexander said abused and threatened her. She faced three counts because Gray’s two sons, aged 10 and 12 at the time, were with him in the kitchen when the confrontation took place.
Alexander said she acted out of fear when she ran into her garage and retrieved a gun from her car, then returned to the house to confront Gray. The prosecutor, Angela Corey, argued she acted in anger. Alexander said she was just standing her ground, but a judge rejected that claim. Her lawyers have begun the process of filing an appeal, lead attorney Bruce Zimet, told theGrio.
“We have filed our briefs, the state of Florida has filed their briefs, and we’re waiting for the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee to set oral arguments or render an opinion,” Zimet said on Monday. “We have no real timetable as to when that’s going to happen.”
In the meantime, Alexander is expected to be transported from the county jail back to prison on Wednesday.
Zimet explained the options before the three-judge panel: they could reverse the conviction based on errors found in Alexander’s trial, or they can find that the judge in the case made a mistake by not granting Alexander immunity under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which would result in her being freed. There is a third option: that the judges could reject Alexander’s appeal altogether, leaving her to face 20 years behind bars.
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