A woman sentenced to 20 years in prison after firing a "warning shot" during an argument with her abusive husband won a new trial on Thursday in a case under Florida's controversial self-defense law.

A state appeals court ruled that Marissa Alexander, 32, deserved a new trial because the judge failed to properly instruct the jury regarding her claim of self-defense.

No one was injured in the shooting but because Alexander fired a gun in the incident, Florida's mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines required the judge to sentence her to 20 years in prison.

The case of Alexander, who is black, drew criticism from civil rights groups concerned about self-defense laws and mandatory minimum sentencing rules.

Alexander's fate received little attention until her May 2012 conviction in the wake of the case of volunteer watchman George Zimmerman who said he shot a teenager in self defense. The Zimmerman case led to nationwide protests and re-ignited a debate about U.S. gun laws.

Zimmerman, who is white, said he killed an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self defense in February 2012. He was acquitted of murder charges in July at his trial in the central Florida town of Sanford.

Under the so-called "Stand Your Ground" law, people fearing for their lives can use deadly force without having to retreat from a confrontation, even when it is possible.

The 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee said in Thursday's ruling that the trial judge made a "fundamental error" when he instructed the jury that Alexander was required to prove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The defendant's burden is only to raise a reasonable doubt concerning self defense," Appeals Court judge Robert Benton wrote for the court.

Local leaders from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Action Network have called for Florida Governor Rick Scott to pardon Alexander.

The groups have asked the governor to create a task force to investigate mandatory sentencing laws, which they say disproportionately affect black Americans. They also want an existing task force looking into Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law to examine how that statute has affected domestic violence victims.

Alexander was found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because her husband's two children were in the house during the argument in August 2010.

A slightly built woman who stands 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 meter), Alexander said her 245-pound (111 kg) husband Rico Gray, was moving toward her threateningly when she fired into a kitchen wall. He had previously been convicted on a domestic violence charge for attacking her.

Gray's two children were at home, in the living room. Prosecutors said the shot endangered Gray and the children.

Alexander filed a "Stand Your Ground" claim, but a judge ruled against her because Alexander chose to go back into the house with her gun.

A jury took just 12 minutes to find her guilty of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

At the time, Alexander had an active restraining order against her husband and she carried a concealed weapons permit

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-woman-jailed-firing-warning-shot-husband-wins-171151549.html

Neat article - it's incorrect in identifying Zimmerman as white when he's latino but that's just the press rabble rousing on racial issues.

There's an old rule of thumb with self-defense cases.  Be the only one still alive that way only your story is entered as testimony.  

Shoot to kill.  Don't shoot to warn.  

Actually they say that his mother was afro-peruvian. Wouldn't that make him black?

Based on the information provided, it looks as though she should have been acquitted.

But the motive behind these laws ultimately is confiscation of all firearms.

Interesting that the NAACP is backing her, as these laws advance a communist agenda and the NAACP was originally funded by the CPUSA.

A Florida woman who claimed to be a victim of abuse, yet was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for allegedly firing a warning shot during a dispute with her then husband, was released on bond just in time for Thanksgiving.

 
Related StoriesMarissa Alexander was released Wednesday night with bond set at $200,000 and must remain under house arrest as she awaits a new trial. It took just 12 minutes for a jury to convict Alexander, a mother of three, of aggravated assault in 2012. The conviction of Alexander, who is black, sparked outrage and cries of a racial double standard in light of the exoneration of George Zimmerman, for the death of Trayvon Martin.

Alexander unsuccessfully tried to invoke Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law as the same state's attorney office and prosecution team from Duval County who unsuccessfully worked to put Zimmerman behind bars told the court that she did not act in self-defense.

Alexander was granted a new trial in September after an appellate judge ruled that jury instructions handed down during her trial were wrong. The instructions from her original trial included one that said Alexander had to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that she was acting in self-defense, and that self-defense only applied if the victim suffered an injury, which her husband had not.

In a statement the Duval County state attorney office wrote, "The SAO will continue to seek justice for our two child victims and their father who were endangered by the shot the defendant fired at them."

Alexander, whose lawyer could not be reached for comment, testified that, on Aug. 1, 2010, her then husband, Rico Gray Sr., questioned her fidelity and the paternity of her 1-week-old child.

She claimed that he broke through a bathroom door that she had locked and grabbed her by the neck. She said she tried to push past him but he shoved her into the door, sparking a struggle that felt as if it went on for an "eternity."

Afterward, she claimed that she ran to the garage and tried to leave but was unable to open the garage door, so she retrieved a gun, which under Florida law she legally owned.

Once inside, she claimed, her husband saw the gun and charged at her "in a rage" saying, "B***h, I'll kill you." She said she raised the gun and fired a warning shot into the air because it was the "lesser of two evils."

The jury rejected Alexander's self-defense claim.

Prosecutors argued that Alexander, who had not been living in the home for two months leading up to the shooting, provoked the incident, and that there was no proof the garage door was broken, Alexander's rationale for not leaving the altercation.

Duval County states attorney Angela Corey offered her a three-year plea deal in her first trial, but that was rejected.

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-woman-imprisoned-warning-shot-released-prison-thanksgiving-215504936--abc-news-topstories.html

Warning shots are always a bad idea. If you find yourself in the kind of situation that necessitates your drawing a revolver or automatic pistol the only thing to do is to open fire & keep shooting until you've put the malefactor down for good. Anything else is just a dangerous waste of ammunition.

That is contrary to Catholic morality. Catholic morality calls for proportionality in defending oneself. If you pull out a gun, the preferred option would be to wound the attacker if at all possible instead of killing him. In her case she did the ethically right thing in warning off her attacker instead of killing him.

Poche,the effects of fear & adrenaline make it very difficult for most people to aim for a leg or arm when they believe themselves in imminent danger of death, for most people it would probably be all they could do to fire into the trunk of the attacker. It's not like the old movies where you can effortlessly shoot the other fellow in the hand & make him drop his gun. Anyhow the meaning I intended when I wrote "put down for good" was only to shoot until the aggressive action had ceased, in such a case the wounds inflicted may prove mortal or may not. I didn't mean anything along the lines of "walk up & give him two or three more bullets in the head to finish the job" or anything like that. Also there is no reason to take out a pistol if the situation hasn't got to the point that you've good reason to believe yourself to be in danger of being killed or seriously injured, again I didn't mean that if someone were threatening "I'm going to beat your ---- you ----!" you therefore have a right to shoot him on the spot, however if he were to come towards you holding a ball-peen hammer then you most certainly would have the right to shoot if he continued to advance after having been ordered to halt.

When you said, "Warning shots are always a bad idea. If you find yourself in the kind of situation that necessitates your drawing a revolver or automatic pistol the only thing to do is to open fire & keep shooting until you've put the malefactor down for good. Anything else is just a dangerous waste of ammunition." I thought you were speaking from a legal standpoint. How it is easier to defend yourself if the other person died. In this case you might win on the basis of law but you would still not be acting ethically. The case of extreme fear and adrenaline would mitigate culpability.