Back in August 2010, Marissa Alexander was involved in a dispute with her husband, Rico Gray:
On August 1, 2010, she said her husband, Rico Gray, read text messages on her phone that she had written to her ex-husband. She said Gray became enraged and accused her of being unfaithful. “That’s when he strangled me. He put his hands around my neck,” Alexander said.
She managed to escape his grip but instead of running out the front door of their home, she ran into the garage, she said, to get into her truck and drive away. Alexander said that in the confusion of the fight, she forgot to get her keys and the garage door wouldn’t open, so she made a fateful decision. “I knew I had to protect myself,” she said, adding, “I could not fight him. He was 100 pounds more than me. I grabbed my weapon at that point.”
She went back inside the house and when Gray saw her pistol at her side, she said he threatened to kill her, so she raised the gun and fired one shot. “I believe when he threatened to kill me, that’s what he was absolutely going to do. That’s what he intended to do. Had I not discharged my weapon at that point, I would not be here.”
Alexander, however, said she did not aim the gun at her husband. She said she fired into the air intending to scare him away and Gray quickly left the house with his two children. No one was hurt in the incident (Source: CNN).
Marissa Alexander is now, oddly enough, sitting in jail, awaiting her sentence. Alexander says she didn’t aim at Gray, that she fired a warning shot in the air. However, she was convicted on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and she could face 20 years in prison?
So, an abusive husband threatens the life of his wife. Wife gets her gun and fires a warning shot to get him to leave the house. No one was injured. Yet, the wife is thrown in jail? What happened to “Stand Your Ground”? If ever there was a case where it would make sense to enforce that law, it’s this one, right?
Circuit Judge James Daniel has denied Marissa Alexander’s plea for a new trial and she is scheduled to be sentenced May 11, this Friday.
The judge said it would be improper, however, to reverse Circuit Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt’s previous findings in the immunity hearing, which would ultimately translate into an acquittal.
“Maybe I would be agreeing to a new Stand Your Ground motion, which highlights some of the difficulties we are struggling with procedurally implementing this new law,” Daniel said. “But ultimately the motion is denied.”
Daniel said that despite any new evidence, Senterfitt’s ruling was based on Alexander’s decision to go back into the home armed with a gun (Source: Jacksonville).
If she tried leaving from the garage and was unable to, what was she supposed to do, if not go back into the house? She stood her ground and made him leave the premises. Gray has a history with domestic violence, he threatened her, and she made him leave. Both parties walked away with their lives, unlike another Florida case involving “Stand Your Ground”.
How is it that George Zimmerman was able to be on someone else’s property, disregard what a 911 operator told him, go after Trayvon Martin, and kill him, yet Zimmerman was free to roam until enough people complained about him not being arrested and sent to trial? I think we all know why, but I’ll say it anyway…black people cannot use the “Stand Your Ground” law as a means of protection from aggressors. However, if you are a non-black person and you feel like you’re being threatened by a black person, that’s a different story; feel free to stand your ground all over the place.
Oh America! You’re double standards slay me.
Related articles
- Florida Judge denies ‘Stand Your Ground’ retrial to female black defendant (rawstory.com)
- Abused Wife Marissa Alexander Faces 20 Year Sentence, “Stand Your Ground” Law Fails Her (hellobeautiful.com)
- Where Was ‘Stand Your Ground’ for Marissa Alexander? (ideas.time.com)
