Stand Your Ground (for men only)
by digby
Apparently, some Floridians are allowed to stand their ground but others aren’t:
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.
A jury only took 12 minutes to return a verdict of assault with a deadly weapon. She faces 20 years in prison.
Granted she wasn’t a nice young man carrying a weapon outside of his home, trolling the neighborhood looking for suspicious young black men, so she doesn’t get that benefit of the doubt. But id would seem that the fact that she didn’t actually hurt or kill anyone would mitigate the issue just a little.
Truthfully, I don’t know if her lawyers even claimed the “stand your ground” defense. I’m just pointing out that “justice” doesn’t really seem to be the point. And as the article points out:
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.
Read the whole thing to understand just why this woman had every reason to believe she was facing imminent death or great bodily harm.
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