By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Angela Corey has become a minor legal celebrity for her tough-minded prosecution of the Trayvon Martin murder case. Her toughness has also drawn the ire of U.S. House member Corrine Brown in a racially charged case in Jacksonville. The case involves Marissa Alexander who was charged under Florida’s “10-20-life” law which mandates progressively tough penalties for violent felonies when firearms are involved.
Saying he had no choice, Judge James Daniel sentenced the mother of an 11-year-old to 20 years in prison after a jury convicted her of aggravated assault for firing a warning shot to discourage her estranged husband from choking her. In a cruel irony another judge had rejected Alexander’s invocation of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, ruling she wasn’t in fear for her safety when she returned to her house to get the car keys she had forgotten after she ran into her garage in an attempt to escape.
The prosecutor was singled out for failing to exercise discretion in the case. “There is no justification for 20 years,” Brown told Corey, “All the community was asking for was mercy and justice.”
Corey had offered Alexander a plea deal which carried a three year sentence. Alexander bet on the good sense of the jury, and crapped out. Judge Daniel seemed frustrated by the case:
“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.”
Rep. Brown was not so diplomatic saying, “She was overcharged by the prosecutor. Period. She never should have been charged.” Brown, the Jacksonville congresswoman, told reporters that the case was a product of “institutional racism.” Corey said the case deserved to be prosecuted because Alexander fired in the direction of a room where two children were standing.
Mandatory minimum sentences ignore mitigating factors and punish under a “bright-line” test. They are the darling of the “law and order” crowd who see the world in stark shades of black and white and who eschew any discretion for “lily-livered” judges who have the disturbing habit of mixing compassion and justice in sentencing decisions.
Proponents of the 1999 “10-20-life” law point to the fact that violent gun crime rates have dropped 30 percent statewide since the law was enacted. Is 20 years fair for a woman trying to defend herself? Should the prosecutor have heeded Rep. Brown’s suggestion and backed off the charges altogether? Can a law be just in the face of a result that flies in the face of “natural justice”?
Source: CNN
`Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
@Malisha,
There is indeed terrible sexism in the courts, sometimes used against women, but please, we bend over backwards to allow mothers to steal children from fathers, (we call that “tender years” doctrine”) and to allow women to kill their children, cut off their partner’s genitals,and kill their husbands (we say to these things “you go girl” and call it “battered wife syndrome”)
If you have or had any role in this you’re damn right you should apologize and be ashamed of your actions.
Especially if you otherwise claim to believe in equality and not believe in violence.
anon: from your link- Alexander had tried to use Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law in her defense, but a different judge rejected it because Alexander had returned to the home at one point during the altercation. (She forgot her car keys when trying to flee.)”
I had a home invasion once and escaped to my car, but I did not have the car keys. Luckily I saw the criminal get into his car down the road and ran into the house to get my keys.
Was Marissa supposed to walk to a pay phone? Walk to a police station? He would have followed her in the car if he was really mad.
One part I read about said that the jury did not believe she was afraid! That they thought she was the angry one.
And that is why they voted this way.
Did they know about the mandatory sentence in addition to knowing about jury nullification?
They treat mothers and babies very badly in our court system, that’s my opinion, and Anon can debate me on it, but won’t get my apology for my opinion. I think one of the main reasons this whole thing happened to Alexander is that they hold mothers to a different standard than they hold others to. But I don’t want to go there now. This is about Angela Corey. I’m reserving judgment on what she did in the Zimmerman case; I judge her as way wrong and horribly blameworthy for what she did in the Alexander case.
Thank you for describing the husband – in his own words! sheesh, that is what is so frustrating about this case.
So, everyone says she will get another chance. When?
How long will she be away from a newborn baby because of this travesty of justice?
(and I may add, a complete waste of tax dollars)
Anon, back down, man, I did not say he was behaving like MEN I said HE SAID he beat up women and he said it “as if it was just ‘being a man’ –without shame and without apology, almost bragging.”
I’m not apologizing, I already explained what I meant and I still mean it.
If we’re putting up comments and we’re not waiting two days for editors to get the implications worked out and we don’t have a real clear understanding of how our readers are going to take the stuff, and there is an occasional misunderstanding, that’s just part of this, and you do not need my apology. In fact, look at this ridiculous situation. I say something you misunderstand and then you get to demand my apology? Perhaps if I said it about you, you might, but otherwise, it’s just something you didn’t like and you thought I was wrong, OK? Step down, man. I’m not sorry I said what I said, OK?
I hope you read the guy’s deposition. Then you will probably (because you seem intelligent and I cannot see how ANY INTELLIGENT PERSON can misunderstand what HE said in his deposition) get exactly the impression I got. HE THINKS what he did was OK because he was just “being a man.”
He thinks he had permission to decide when his woman was being wrong and he thinks he had permission to correct her, his kinda way. Read it.
I AM sorry, by the way, that you got so insulted by your misunderstanding of what I said. Some of my best friends are men.
Malisha,
I wouldn’t know know where to get the transcripts of his deposition, and if he said words to the effect that he felt he was entitled to his behavior since he was a man, than I can understand your writing this:
“(as if he was just BEING A MAN)”
But in your original sentence, that is not what I believe your words were conveying:
“He admitted, remarkably (as if he was just BEING A MAN) that had his two sons not been with him that day,”
I am in no way and never have justified his behavior.
I have stated that the notion she shouldn’t have been able to use the gun to stop his attack is idiocy.
But I have questioned, similar to the George Zimmerman questions, why she was in the garage, and why she couldn’t use the garage door emergency release to escape.
This story suggests (I had not known this), that she had escaped and went back.
http://www.newser.com/story/145873/woman-gets-20-years-for-firing-warning-shot.html
“Alexander had tried to use Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law in her defense, but a different judge rejected it because Alexander had returned to the home at one point during the altercation.”
I think her sentence is bullshit, but I think a lot of zero tolerance sentences are bullshit, and I think judges and prosecutors are mostly full of shit these days.
I am curious as to what the jury might say as to why they voted as they did, and how they may have reacted had they been fully informed about all sorts of things, including jury nullification.
Anon, read the transcripts of the husband’s deposition: I said that he admitted the violence AS IF it was just his “being a man” — I was not saying he committed violence just because he was a man. It was HIS ATTITUDE in that deposition that made me characterize his comments that way. It was shocking to read that stuff!
He admitted beating up the women he was with and the women with whom he had kids! He admitted that at the time Alexander fired the gun, he was mad enough to hurt her and he was coming at her! He admitted she had nowhere to escape to. (No she couldn’t just get in the car and lock the door — he could have gotten to that door first and dragged her out and beaten her up severely and/or killed her!) He repeatedly told the lawyer that she was SMALL! He was much bigger, much stronger, she had just had a baby and wasn’t even up to her normal strength yet, still lactating, post-partum.
Each time he described something he did to her he admitted how enraged he was, and he emphasized that he could get really mad, and he expressed no remorse or shame for his conduct. HE WAS THE ONE describing these things as if he was just “being a man.” Strangely, I have heard men do this. I’m not saying MOST MEN are like this; I AM SAYING ALEXANDER’S HUSBAND, the man involved in this case, is like this!
He admits it.
He almost BRAGS about it: Don’t mess with him, he’s dangerous when he gets mad.
He says one time she just wanted to leave but HE would not let her leave because HE decided he was gonna TALK TO HER and she was gonna TALK TO HIM. Well you know what? When someone I know has a horrible temper and that person has beat me up a few times, and that person wants me to TALK to them at a time that I think it might get bad, I’m scared. And you know what, if I can’t escape that person at some particular time when I see that they are getting mad, and the only thing I think I can do is fire a gun to let them know I mean business, well, I guess I’ll go ahead and risk ten years in prison to save my life, yes I will.
And perhaps if Trayvon Martin had been able to effectively defend himself on 2/26/2012 they’d have locked him up; I am pretty sure of it. But he’d still be alive. Alexander is wrongfully imprisoned but she’s alive. And her husband didn’t beat her because he was just being a man. He beat her because he was just a criminal, but he THOUGHT it was OK to do that stuff because he was a man. HE HAD IT WRONG; I didn’t.
“In a court system the average family can not afford ”
In a court system the average person can not afford
“All the statistics you can possibly gather on the criminal courts and the family courts would make me suspect that if you simply instituted a new system where you said “Heads for Plaintiff, Tails for Defendant” and you tossed the damn coin, you’d not only come out with as much justice, but you would avoid the other harm the courts can do.”
Well, my stats are backed up again and again, but, … I actually do agree 1000% with this.
Regardless of my stats, your statement that to beat on women is what it is to be a man, is absurd, and calumny, and you should apologize for that defamation of all men.
If you truly believe that “(as if he was just BEING A MAN)” applies to all men, or most men with respect to beating on women or even a plurality of men, you are sadly, a sick individual, and not one that can be trusted for her opinions on much about our court system or fairness, or civil liberties.
My ex didn’t have “excellent killer instincts”. She is a female. In family court. In a court system the average family can not afford and a court system terribly biased against men.
I think it’s an ethical disgrace that so many other lawyers, criminal, corporate, tax, all stay away from family courts and feel they are somehow above the situation.
It’s a terribly unjust court system, and until all lawyers start speaking up about, it just perpetuates abuse.
Shano, with respect to the question of how much public outcry is needed — the simple answer is TOO MUCH. We simply cannot access justice any more (and I doubt we ever COULD) because the little fiefdoms set up all over the country as “trial courts” where the real law takes place are flying below radar 99.9% of the time. If what Anon says is true about his own case, he had a spouse with excellent killer instinct and she used the system against him very well. His statistics are wrong and I am not going into the fathers’ rights guys debate on this thread and in fact am quite tired of it because no matter what the real domestic violence people prove and replicate over and over in study after study, these things do not work and never will work for most people most of the time.
For most people most of the time, the courts do not work either. So for a few people, now and then, the media jumps into it and gets something to either work (OK, Zimmerman was actually CHARGED!) or to become so screwed up that you wished you had just gone along with the original injustice anyway. But who can finance a big media campaign? Who could, in the past? Very few and very rare.
All the statistics you can possibly gather on the criminal courts and the family courts would make me suspect that if you simply instituted a new system where you said “Heads for Plaintiff, Tails for Defendant” and you tossed the damn coin, you’d not only come out with as much justice, but you would avoid the other harm the courts can do.
“Maybe she should be grateful. In some other country, under some other law, she might have been stoned.”
Grateful that the process might yet clear her yes.
“Not even when you can protect me from the not so law abiding citizens that carry guns illegally will I give up my gun. Because I can gaurantee you a criminal will always have one.”
Well sorry, this is demonstrably false. I’ve got more than enough video of people robbing a store without a real gun because they couldn’t get one. Many cases on the books of people who may have been the “bad guy” in your view but didn’t have a gun after all. That you don’t get this is your strategic flaw and the result of the unreasoning found in your ilk.
That you don’t understand that many ‘criminals’ ….as if there is such a perceivable category…don’t necessarily have any form of weapons is a tragedy. I’d suggest you find a wise martial arts course that isn’t too gung ho for knocking people out and learn to read people’s motivations a bit better. You’ve been swamped in gun culture which has little to do with self-defense of anything outside its ideology.
Self-Defense ….transcends gun culture. The only gun allowed in my house is a wax wood staff. In Chinese martial arts we call them “gun”…how ironic that a stick that can whip your ass, literally, is called a gun and yet,…you might get to walk away afterwards. It has been a great servant and a great teacher to me for many moons now. It has shown me that one can operate in even the most chaotic violent moments without need for the weapons of death. The mind is your best defense.
In a way, I agree that “people kill people” but boy it would be amazing to see so many of you do it without bullets and a whole lot of chickenshit gun toting cowards who get themselves in trouble wouldn’t be able to if they had to back up their mouths with their hands instead of guns. This would be true of you or of “criminals” since your classism is clear.
Arming one’s self is a tricky subject. I can respect Mike Spindell’s comment about being a leftie gun owner. The guns aren’t in his head, from what i can read. I could be wrong. But seems like it isn’t leading his philosophy.
That isn’t what “top shot” is about…no…Top Shot is about gun culture which is remarkably the most insecure culture around us perhaps; and the easiest one to milk for money…just say someone’s coming for their guns…works every time..>Cha Ching!
I really wish I could transcend my moral compass and open a gun business and just advertise daily, “the government is out to get you and their coming for your guns.” It would be easier business than working for sure!
What is amazing is that these same nuts don’t realize that the world is actually statistically safer now than ever in history (relative to crime and war). Yet, these apocalyptic types love to make sure they’re “prepared” for who knows what.
As for Florida law, it is clearly be applied as they meant it…to protect Republican voters from the bad people they don’t want to be like. What a swill of a situation.
MCMcC,
I don’t and never have owned a gun. I do believe there is a “right to bear arms” though. Despise the NRA since they’re really just arms industry spokesmen. Agree with you on the rest of your comment particularly that our best method of defense is our own brain.
Idealist, Alexander wasn’t mad at the guy for failing to bring home the bacon. He was accustomed to unlawfully restraining her, beating her, knocking her down, having her hit her head on things, and otherwise expressing his manhood in ways that he did not feel ashamed of, even in retrospect. This wasn’t economic inadequacy or impotence at work; this was real and present danger and Alexander responded to it in a rational and effective way. For this, she is being deprived of liberty and property and her kids are being deprived of their mother. My My My, what do you call that?
Maybe she should be grateful. In some other country, under some other law, she might have been stoned.
SHE IS the perfect SYG case. The point is that the law is only applied by judges. (If it even gets to a judge which, early in the Zimmerman case, it did not.) There was a motion made to dismiss the charges against her because she acted in self-defense; there was an admission by the husband that he beat his various baby-mamas and he beat her too. He seemed proud of it, didn’t try to hide it! Her motion to dismiss the charges was denied and then she was convicted. SYG doesn’t help the people who need it; SYG doesn’t change the basic elements of self-defense. It only says you don’t have to “run” when you’re attacked. Here’s the woman who WOULD have run if she COULD have run, and yet her self-defense was not “excused” by the law.
It’s a travesty, as so many of the cases are. Our jails and prisons actually are full of people who’s major crime was not having enough money to beat the system when it came after them. And remember, the cases that prosecutors take are the ones they want to take, and the ones they usually want to take are the ones where they can force a plea. They probably thought the Alexander case was one of those.
Interestingly, even the “victim” of this crime, the husband, admitted that she never pointed that gun at him. Fired it only to make her point and to make him leave, which he did. She did not chase after him and she did not shoot him. She just wanted the “asshole to get away.”
@id, since I think of you as someone who does care, and I appreciate that, I do suggest you research the issue. Fathers & Families seems to be a great organization and a good place to start.
I’ve had my life terribly affected by sexism in the courts built up by bogus beliefs in stupid tropes. The predominant trope being that men are inherently a danger to women.
From her first TRO, to the by now rote complaint in each of her filings that I am a danger to my kids or to her, my ex wife has been able to manipulate the court into whittling down a 50/50 joint shared and legal custody to just about nothing.
At no time has she ever introduced anything, and I’m really serious about this, she has never introduced anything approaching evidence like a police report, teacher’s report, nurses’ report, doctor’s report, testimony from neighbors, testimony from anyone.
All she has had to do is mention her bogus fears to a court psychologist, one of whom then went to testify to the judge about the lifting of a TRO, and I quote, “There is no evidence of any sort supporting Ms. Anon’s concern’s, but regardless, her claims are so serious that I have to take them seriously and so I recommend maintaining the current order for six months and then re-evaluating.”
So on the basis of fears, and sexist society wide tropes, and cover your ass attitudes, I have had my children basically stolen by my ex-wife and aided and abetted by her lawyers and the courts who continuously by into her crap and justify it with “her fears are so serious that we must take them seriously” even after acknowledging there is no evidence.
And by the way, I have no police record, no record of anything like drug abuse, alcoholism, or anything. I don’t own guns, knives, bows and arrows. I am a semi-successful computer programmer.
But the court allows itself to be manipulated by fears, tropes, and bullshit.
So I recommend to you that before you think that you know what the current research on DV really is, you should do some studying yourself.
Malisha’s claim is completely bogus, unfair, and complicit in the pain and suffering of thousands (or millions) of children and their fathers.
Just one more comment in the defense of women:
Women as the physically weaker sex can seldon plan on winning a “fair” physical fight. They are left to other means.
Most often enountered by myself was flagrant defiance (when patience snapped) and very seldom ridicule.
But I hypotheticise that when the guy stops bringing home the bacon for both the table and the bed, then a woman’s
patience can become tried.
Some expert in family relations should take over the domestic violence discussion at this point. I retire.
Bye y’all.
Why isn’t she a perfect SYG case?
idealist, I want to see the gun lobby come out in support of this woman. She is the perfect case because I think her gun saved her life that day.
Or you may think having children there would have prevented the husband from his attack? No, only her having a gun stopped him. imho
ANON,
I did not mean to attack you nor your stats. I did not in fact.
I just offered hypothetically other stat sources based not on study groups but public sources based on actual cases.
Different sources can give different stats. Again hypo, as I don’t have any to cite. All I can do is Google, and barely that.
Shall we agree to disagree and put our resources back to achieving justice? You yours and I mine.