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Woman Facing 20 Years For Standing Her Ground Against Abusive Husband

VXIII

VXIII

Queen of the Monkeys
20yrs.jpg

20 Years for Standing Her Ground

A Florida woman faces prison after firing a warning shot to scare off an abusive husband.

Jacob Sullum | May 2, 2012

"I got five baby mammas, and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one," Rico Gray confessed during a November 2010 deposition. "The way I was with women…they had to walk on eggshells around me." He recalled punching women in the face, shoving them, choking them, and tossing them out the door.

Yet somehow, after one of those women fired a warning shot into the ceiling of her Jacksonville, Florida, home to scare him away during yet another violent outburst, prosecutors managed to convince a jury that Gray was the victim. As a result, Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of three, faces 20 years in prison for standing her ground against an abusive husband.

Gray has been arrested twice for domestic battery, including an assault that sent Alexander to the hospital. In September 2009 Alexander obtained a protective order against Gray that was still in effect on August 1, 2010, when he flew into a jealous rage after discovering, while poking through her cellphone, that she had sent pictures of their newborn daughter to her first husband.

Alexander was in the master bathroom at the time, and Gray tried to force his way in. When she came out, he screamed and cursed at her while preventing her from leaving the bedroom. "I was like forcing her back with my body," reported Gray, who is seven inches taller than Alexander and outweighs her by 100 pounds.

When Alexander managed to get by, she ran through the kitchen to the garage, where she says she realized she did not have the keys to her car, could not call for help because she had left her cellphone behind, and could not escape because the garage door was not working. Instead she grabbed her handgun from her car and headed back through the kitchen, where Gray confronted her again.

In his deposition Gray admitted he "had told her if she ever cheated on me I would kill her" and during the fight said, "If I can't have you, nobody can." He conceded he "was going towards her" when Alexander fired a single shot, high and to his right, that went through the kitchen wall and lodged in the ceiling of the living room. Finally he left, along with his two sons.

"The gun was never pointed at me," Gray said. "She just didn't want me to put my hands on her anymore, so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn't get hurt." If his sons hadn't been in the house, Gray said, "I probably would have tried to take the gun from her," and "I probably would have put my hand on her."

But at the July 2011 hearing where Alexander argued that the charges against her should be dismissed because she had acted in self-defense, Gray—who immediately after the fight portrayed her as the aggressor, then said in his deposition three months later that he had lied out of anger—changed his story again, saying he had lied in his deposition to protect her. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt rejected Alexander's motion to dismiss, saying she could have escaped through the front or back door instead of going to the garage.

Yet Florida's self-defense law says "a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat" if "he or she reasonably believes" it is necessary to prevent "imminent death or great bodily harm" or "the imminent commission of a forcible felony." In 1999, furthermore, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a woman attacked by her husband in the home they share has no duty to flee.

On March 16, after deliberating for 12 minutes, a jury convicted Alexander on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Although she injured no one, she faces a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence unless she can win a new trial.
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http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/02/20-years-for-standing-her-ground
 
See, the problem here is that Alexander misfired the warning shot. She was supposed to aim it at his head. Maybe another part of the problem is that she had to go find her gun. She should have just carried it in her bra so it would be around when she needed it. (What is the point of having a gun and concealed carry permit and all the rest if you don't carry your gun at all times?)

And isn't it interesting that Gray seems to be on her side. Has he changed his ways with women?
 
Who the hell takes a mother of three away from her children b/c she fired a warning shot at an abusive man... IQ and drug tests are needed for that jury! That is some crazy stuff.... hopefully the judge will be lenient with her... I mean he even admits he is an abuser.... and she has to pay for it??? Come on system! In my state she could have killed him and got less time!
 
Tundratot said:
See, the problem here is that Alexander misfired the warning shot. She was supposed to aim it at his head. Maybe another part of the problem is that she had to go find her gun. She should have just carried it in her bra so it would be around when she needed it. (What is the point of having a gun and concealed carry permit and all the rest if you don't carry your gun at all times?)

And isn't it interesting that Gray seems to be on her side. Has he changed his ways with women?
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He WAS on her side. Now he's saying he lied to protect her.

Gray—who immediately after the fight portrayed her as the aggressor, then said in his deposition three months later that he had lied out of anger—changed his story again, saying he had lied in his deposition to protect her.
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Obviously a scared battered woman is much more dangerous that a lying, drug addicted, woman beater, better lock her up quick.

I can't help but wondering what the jury knows that we don't know?
 
And isn't it interesting that Gray seems to be on her side. Has he changed his ways with women?
Assholes like this never change their ways, he will just move on to find another woman to abuse, hopefully this one wont shot the ceiling but his genitals, more than once so they never work again...
 
CNN) -- Saying he had no discretion under state law, a judge sentenced a Jacksonville, Florida, woman to 20 years in prison Friday for firing a warning shot in an effort to scare off her abusive husband.

Marissa Alexander unsuccessfully tried to use Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law to derail the prosecution, but a jury in March convicted her of aggravated assault after just 12 minutes of deliberation.

The case, which was prosecuted by the same state attorney who is handling the Trayvon Martin case, has gained the attention of civil rights leaders who say the African-American woman was persecuted because of her race.

After the sentencing, Rep. Corrine Brown confronted State Attorney Angela Corey in the hallway, accusing her of being overzealous, according to video from CNN affiliate WJXT.

"There is no justification for 20 years," Brown told Corey during an exchange frequently interrupted by onlookers. "All the community was asking for was mercy and justice," she said.

Corey said she had offered Alexander a plea bargain that would have resulted in a three-year prison sentence, but Alexander chose to take the case to a jury trial, where a conviction would carry a mandatory sentence under a Florida law known as "10-20-life."
The law mandates increased penalties for some felonies, including aggravated assault, in which a gun is carried or used.

Corey said the case deserved to be prosecuted because Alexander fired in the direction of a room where two children were standing.

Alexander said she was attempting to flee her husband, Rico Gray, on August 1, 2010, when she picked up a handgun and fired a shot into a wall.

She said her husband had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her.

She said she escaped and ran to the garage, intending to drive away. But, she said, she forgot her keys, so she picked up her gun and went back into the house. She said her husband threatened to kill her, so she fired one shot.

"I believe when he threatened to kill me, that's what he was absolutely going to do," she said. "That's what he intended to do. Had I not discharged my weapon at that point, I would not be here."

Alexander's attorneys tried to use the state law that allows people to use potentially deadly force anywhere they feel reasonably threatened with serious harm or death.

But a previous judge in the case rejected the request, saying Alexander's decision to go back into the house was not consistent with someone in fear for her safety, according to the Florida Times Union newspaper.

A jury convicted Alexander in March and Judge James Daniel denied her request for a new trial in April.

Daniel handed down the sentence Friday after an emotional sentencing hearing during which Alexander's parents, 11-year-old daughter and pastor spoke on her behalf.

Several people had to be escorted from the courtroom after breaking out singing and chanting about a perceived lack of justice in the case, but Daniel made a point to say that he had no choice under state law.

"Under the state's 10-20-life law, a conviction for aggravated assault where a firearm has been discharged carries a minimum and maximum sentence of 20 years without regarding to any extenuating or mitigating circumstances that may be present, such as those in this case," Daniel said.

Brown, the Jacksonville congresswoman, told reporters after the sentencing that the case was a product of "institutional racism."

"She was overcharged by the prosecutor. Period," Brown said. "She never should have been charged."

Brown has been more complimentary about Corey's work in the Trayvon Martin case, where her office filed second degree murder charges against neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the February 26 death of the unarmed African-American teen-ager.
[...]
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http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/justice/florida-stand-ground-sentencing/index.html?hpt=ju_c2
 
OMG, I hate this, kind of sounds like she is being punished by the judge for NOT taking the plea deal, what kind of justice is that? I understand the plea deal, cuts time, saves money but sometimes it seems like judicial blackmail, you can go free today if you just plead guilty and if your not guilty you stay here for 2 or 3 years and we will do mistrials until we get a conviction then give you life.

You could bail out but your bail is so high unless you are rich you have to stay there until the trial. The reason for so many poor people wrongfully convicted.

Sorry, but in my view that is just wrong, wrong for too many reasons to list. For anyone interested, here is a list of the incarceration rate per 100k people by country, we are #1of course, have to be #1 in everything you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/breaking-addiction-incarceration-weekly-highlights-20
 
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This is my veiwpoint on how this happens, I could be wrong, but in the past, like when the constitution was written, there was no tv or radio, people had more time. Today we have so many distractions, for some families going to jury duty could cause financial distress, people want to get back to their lives and jobs and family and just do not give it the time that juries may have in the past. But at the same time they were clouded by religious views back then and anyone different was suspect so they were screwed, all the prosecutor had to say is he/she is a son/daughter of Satan and you might as well have hanged yourself in your prison cell.

But in a way that is no different than today, we just use different terms like pathological liar and psycopath too freely, so people really kind of do stay the same. More and more the trials especially the ones on the news just use inflammatory terms to tear that person to pieces before they even get a chance to go to court.

I am not a writer but do know about the power of words, we see this all the time. One day someone is an evil genius psyco and a few years later they are a kind benevolent soul who would harm no one. All because of words. And Experts, its become a battle of who gets the better experts and since I am also not a Lawyer I suspect but dont know for sure that the prosecutor probobly has unlimited access to funds to hire experts while if the defendant has no money they may not be able to hire an expert, even for a wealthy person just having a Lawyer is a huge financial strain. Some law firms will take your case for free if there is enough publicity surrounding it but for the average person this isnt going to happen.

I dont know any answers for this but as someone who sees it in action I am just saying how I see it.
 
I read about this on Facebook and signed her petition, even though I know those don't work. I guess she is going to get so much time because she fired a warning shot, if she would have killed him outright the stand your ground law would have applied, but you aren't allowed to shoot a warning shot. What a fucktard law that is.....
 
If you're in fear of your life you don't grab a gun and go back inside, once you've made it out
Now that it seems we have the whole story, I can understand why she was convicted
It's not stand you ground when you arm yourself and initiate contact, you could've avoided
 
I was always taught if you're going to pull a gun on someone, you better shoot, and you better shoot to kill. I wish that is what she would have done. This is just a travesty of the way our justice system sometimes works. Technically speaking, they got her.
 
LeaveMeBe said:
I was always taught if you're going to pull a gun on someone, you better shoot, and you better shoot to kill. I wish that is what she would have done. This is just a travesty of the way our justice system sometimes works. Technically speaking, they got her.
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She was out of danger, armed herself and returned to confront her attacker, main point being she was out of danger and returned armed, nothing wrong with the system in this case. She went back in creating the confrontation, she could've just kept walking and avoided the whole shooting incident, she she escalated the situation and created the necessity to pull the trigger, not him he didn't go after her, he didn't follow her out side, she came back and confronted him armed, she became the aggressor
 
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biteme said:
She was out of danger, armed herself and returned to confront her attacker, main point being she was out of danger and returned armed, nothing wrong with the system in this case. She went back in creating the confrontation, she could've just kept walking and avoided the whole shooting incident, she she escalated the situation and created the necessity to pull the trigger, not him he didn't go after her, he didn't follow her out side, she came back and confronted him armed, she became the aggressor
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Her argument is that she was trapped, she ran into the garage but couldn't get out because the garage door wouldn't open. By her accounts she wasn't out of danger, the only way out was blocked by him so she tried to scare him off.
 
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biteme said:
She was out of danger, armed herself and returned to confront her attacker, main point being she was out of danger and returned armed, nothing wrong with the system in this case. She went back in creating the confrontation, she could've just kept walking and avoided the whole shooting incident, she she escalated the situation and created the necessity to pull the trigger, not him he didn't go after her, he didn't follow her out side, she came back and confronted him armed, she became the aggressor
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That's why I said they got her, because technically they did. And just to clarify, she couldn't have kept walking because the garage door was broken so she couldn't get out. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have just paced around waiting for him to come out and corner me again, I would have done what she did right up until she fired the warning shot. At that point , I would have put a bullet right between his eyes. OK, maybe not right between them but it would have been with a 3 inch diameter. I feel about this situation (someone aiming to kill me or cause me grieviously bodily harm) as I do about pointing a gun at someone. If I (or anyone) points it at them, I better shoot to kill. If someone comes at me and tells me they're going to kill me, my first though is escape, if that doesn't work, I'm going to think "not if I kill you first motherfucker" and I damned sure will try. I will still be in fear for my life but that doesn't mean I'll roll over and die. If that means I have become the aggressor, then so be it. I still maintain that this is a travesty of the way our justice system is supposed to work.
 
LeaveMeBe said:
That's why I said they got her, because technically they did. And just to clarify, she couldn't have kept walking because the garage door was broken so she couldn't get out. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have just paced around waiting for him to come out and corner me again, I would have done what she did right up until she fired the warning shot. At that point , I would have put a bullet right between his eyes. OK, maybe not right between them but it would have been with a 3 inch diameter. I feel about this situation (someone aiming to kill me or cause me grieviously bodily harm) as I do about pointing a gun at someone. If I (or anyone) points it at them, I better shoot to kill. If someone comes at me and tells me they're going to kill me, my first though is escape, if that doesn't work, I'm going to think "not if I kill you first motherfucker" and I damned sure will try. I will still be in fear for my life but that doesn't mean I'll roll over and die. If that means I have become the aggressor, then so be it. I still maintain that this is a travesty of the way our justice system is supposed to work.
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I don't believe the garage door was broken, she went back for her car keys, which she didn't need if the door was broken, don't think the jury did either, not to sure any of her excuses for going back are believable, ( forgot car keys, forgot cell phone, garage door didn't work)
I agree with you he probably did deserve a bullet between the eyes, at the same time don't know if she was any less aggressive than he was, not believing part of her story makes you question the rest of it, I can see how the jury came to the conclusion they did
http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/0...ing-her-ground
When Alexander managed to get by, she ran through the kitchen to the garage, where she says she realized she did not have the keys to her car, could not call for help because she had left her cellphone behind, and could not escape because the garage door was not working. Instead she grabbed her handgun from her car and headed back through the kitchen, where Gray confronted her again.
 
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I don't really care about the door if it was broke or not, bottom line they just took a mother away from three kids for firing a FUCKING WARNING SHOT, when i said earlier she would have got less time in my state for shooting him dead i wasn't lying!!!! This is so wrong on so many levels, don't they have some baby rapists and MURDERERS they can lock up, yet they let them roam the streets and slap them on the wrist, Florida is one messed up place legally, surprised Mickey hasn't left yet..... surely not a place for children, they will take your mom away for standing up to an abusive man and lock her up til you got kids, but hey step daddy that has been raping you every night will be out in three months to come visit you. ugh! i hate the damn system!!!!!!
 
VXIII said:
20yrs.jpg

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/02/20-years-for-standing-her-ground
Gray has been arrested twice for domestic battery, including an assault that sent Alexander to the hospital. In September 2009 Alexander obtained a protective order against Gray that was still in effect on August 1, 2010, when he flew into a jealous rage after discovering, while poking through her cellphone, that she had sent pictures of their newborn daughter to her first husband.
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Is a protective order the same thing as a restraining order ? If she has an active protective order against him why are they in the same house ? I don't think she should go to jail for firing the warning shot . I think she should be fined for wasting the court's time to get a protective order she ignored .
 
Commentary: No justice when the real crime victim goes to jail

The “victim,â€￾ in this twisted tale of Florida justice, was Rico Gray, a 245-pound Jacksonville truck driver with a proclivity for domestic violence.

The “criminal,â€￾ the woman sentenced to 20 years of hard time on May 11, was his wife, Marissa Alexander, five feet, two inches tall and slight enough, as Gray mentioned in his pre-trial deposition, that on two occasions he tossed her from their house without much physical exertion. [..] . You know, I pretty much picked her up and throwed her out.â€￾

In the months before the incident that sent Marissa to prison, in addition to bodily heaving her out the door, Gray had beaten her, head-butted her in the face while she was pregnant, sent her to the hospital. One of his three arrests on domestic violence charges had been for an attack on Alexander that led to a conviction and probation. On Sept. 30, 2009, a Duval County circuit judge issued an injunction against Gray, ordering him to keep away from Alexander. (In his deposition, Gray said he was previously arrested for striking two other women in the face who, he explained, “wouldn’t shut up.â€￾)

But on August 10, 2010, as Gray approached her in a rage, Alexander (a software firm employee with an MBA and no previous criminal record) fired a pistol twice into the air. A jury convicted her of aggravated assault with a firearm and, under Florida’s draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the presiding judge was left with no discretion. So she got 20 years. Her thug husband got custody of their baby son.

Women’s groups, anti-domestic violence activists, the Jacksonville NAACP, U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown and advocates for sentencing reform have all issued outraged statements condemning the verdict and the sentence. (A “Free Marissaâ€￾ demonstration planned for Tuesday in Jacksonville was postponed after the city was slammed by Tropical Storm Beryl.)

But it was the words of Gray himself, in his Nov. 22, 2010, deposition, that best illustrated the perversity of his wife’s prosecution and conviction and unyielding prison sentence.

Sitting in the State Attorney’s Office, Gray described how he had erupted in anger when he discovered text messages on his wife’s phone to another man. (Alexander had moved out, but had come home briefly that day to retrieve her clothes.) “I was in a rage. I called her a whore and bitch and . . . I told her, you know, I used to always tell her that, if I can’t have you, nobody going to have you. It was not the first time of ever saying it to her.â€￾

Gray said he had intimated that he had unsavory friends who would carry out vengeful acts on his behalf. “I ain’t going to lie. I been on the streets before I started driving trucks, you know, so I know a lot of people and she knows I know a lot of people.â€￾

As they argued, he recounted, Marissa retreated into the bathroom. “I don’t recall breaking the door open, but I know I beat on it hard enough where it could have been broken open. Probably had some dents.â€￾

Once he managed to get inside, he said he pushed her into the door with enough violence to further damage the door.

Did you put your hands around her neck? “Not that particular day. No.â€￾
They struggled. She ran out through the laundry room into the garage. “But I knew she couldn’t leave out of the garage because the garage door was locked.â€￾ She came back, he said, with a gun, yelling at him to leave. “I told her I ain’t leaving until you talk to me, I ain’t going nowhere, and so I started walking toward her and she shot in the air.â€￾

He added details. “I start walking toward her, because she was telling me to leave the whole time and, you know, I was cursing and all that.â€￾ His two sons by a previous marriage were in the room. “If my kids wouldn’t have been there, I probably would have put my hand on her. Probably hit her. I got five baby mommas and I put my hands on every last one of them, except for one.

“I physically abused them. Emotionally. You know.â€￾
And then came what should have been the clincher: “I honestly think she just didn’t want me to put my hands on her anymore so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt, you know. You know, she did what she had to do.â€￾

He said, “The gun was never actually pointed at me. When she raised the gun down and raised it up, you know, the gun was never pointed at me. The fact is, you know . . . she never been violent toward me. I was always the one starting it. If she was violent toward me, it was because she was trying to get me up off her or stop me from doing.â€￾

Gray’s deposition might have read like a confession of a husband charged with domestic violence, but it was Marissa Alexander who was convicted in April after a Duval circuit judge rejected her Stand Your Ground defense. The judge decided that Alexander could have fled instead of running into the garage and fetching the pistol from her car. “This is inconsistent with a person in genuine fear of his or her life,â€￾ the judge ruled — illustrating, if nothing else, that the effectiveness of the controversial self-defense statute varies wildly from one Florida circuit to the next.

Marissa fired the gun twice that day into the wall. No one was injured. But the State Attorney’s Office said the reckless discharge of a firearm endangered the children. A jury (never told about the mandatory 20-year sentence) agreed. Circuit Judge James Daniel, handing down the verdict, noted that because of the state law, the sentencing decision “has been entirely taken out of my hands.â€￾

Duval State Attorney Angela Corey, the same special prosecutor brought in by the governor to oversee the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, dismissed the growing protests against the disproportionate verdict. Corey noted that just a few days before her trial, Alexander had rejected a plea offer that would have sent her to prison for three years instead of 20.

But three years would still seem a harsh sentence for a woman whose crime was to use a firearm to fend off the likes of Rico Gray. “The way I was with women, they was like they had to walk on egg shells around me. They never knew what I was thinking. What I might say . . . What I might do . . . I hit them. Push them.â€￾
Some victim.
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http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/31/3631656/commentary-no-justice-when-the.html#storylink=cpy


Hes no victim hes a fat fucking slug
 
What. The. Fuck?
No, seriously, how does that even BEGIN to make sense? Does the jackoff husband know the judge, or what?

The poor woman, fuck I hope everyone rides that asshole judge hard so he has to rethink his idiocy.
 
Florida's judicial system seems to be just as fucked-up as the UK's. Maybe we time-share the judges?

No way in HELL she should have been jailed for this.

''But I knew she couldn’t leave out of the garage because the garage door was locked.”
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She couldn't escape, and he KNEW she couldn't escape. Her only option was to get the gun and fire warning shots. And her kids were in the house too, so maybe she was worried about what he would do to them if she managed to escape him? Maybe she went back in there to get him away from the kids too?

This whole thing is fucked up, and I hope the jury is proud of themselves. Fucking idiots.
 
And it isn't as if he is even lying to make himself look better to the jury, he's telling the crapping truth about himself and how violent and emotionally abusive he is to her and to all his babies mamas and the jury still convicted her!!!

That's what gets me is that he tells the truth about himself and about what he was doing to her and they still ruled that she didn't have the right to defend herself against him in whatever way she could.

I do hope they manage to get this sentence overturned.
 
I get the feeling that she wasn't as much of a victim as the media is portraying and the judge could see through her "poor me" act. It sounds like they had a very volatile relationship and I would bet a weeks pay that they were both violent to each other. My inlaws were like that before my MIL stopped drinking. They would break 2x4's over each others heads, once my FIL grabbed my MIL's toes and ripped them apart. They never had a working broom because they would always hit each other with it and break it, every time the police showed up they would treat her like the victim even though 90% of the time she started it.

This is why my children never went over there without me.

I still think there's a good chance she'll end up getting her sentence either dropped or reduced.
 
Northernspark said:
Thinking he still just wants to heep her?
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Nah; if she goes to jail then he's saddled with his child ... so much for his freedom and love-life with the other 4 already existing baby mommas and any further prospective baby mommas. Let there be no doubt, he's all about looking after himself.
 
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