In the wake of the Trayvon Martin trial, Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense laws came under international scrutiny. However, another criminal trial from around the same time, the Marissa Alexander case, has sparked Florida lawmakers to extend the provisions of Stand Your Ground.
Marissa Alexander is a Jacksonville woman whose trial for aggravated assault attracted a storm of media attention in 2012. Alexander, who has a master’s degree and had worked for a payroll software company, had recently received a restraining order against her husband, whose child she had delivered nine days before. She was retrieving items from the house of her husband, Rico Gray when, to her surprise, Gray turned out to be at the house. An argument ensued, and Alexander found a firearm in the garage. Alexander pointed the gun at her husband and his two children, before firing a shot in the air near Gray’s head—a shot her defense team claimed was a warning shot fired in self-defense.
Alexander’s ultimate twenty-year prison sentence for aggravated assault sparked nationwide outcry. The sentence’s severity drew particular scrutiny, as the punishment doled out by Florida’s sentencing rules is greater than those many convicted killers receive. As developments in her case mirrored those of George Zimmerman’s trial for the alleged murder of Trayvon Martin, many questioned why a warning shot fired into the air should receive two decades of prison time in a state with such wide-sweeping self-defense laws.
Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill into law last Friday allowing defendants the chance to avoid criminal prosecution if they use a gun in pure self-defense, by threatening its use or firing a warning shot. Alexander’s defense team was pleased by the passage of the law. They released a statement upon hearing the news, saying, “We learned today that Governor Rick Scott has signed the corrective Stand Your Ground Bill, which was advanced by the legislature as a result of concern about Marissa’s case among others. We are of course grateful for the governor’s actions.”
ABC News chief legal correspondent Dan Abrams said that Stand Your Ground laws will likely be used more frequently in the near future. “The goal was to expand those special stand-your-ground provisions to firing a warning shot, to expand use of it as a tool for people accused of a crime to claim a form of self-defense,” Abrams said.
The legal landscape changes often, and the criminal defense attorneys at Gilbert and Smallman know how to use newly legislated resources to fight for your rights in court. Call today for your legal needs!
