Florida Releases Woman Jailed for 20 Years for Firing "Warning Shot"

A Florida woman sentenced to 20 years in prison after firing a “warning shot” during an argument with her abusive husband has been released on bond while she awaits retrial under a controversial part of the state’s self-defense law.

The case of Marissa Alexander, who was convicted of aggravated-assault with a deadly weapon, touched off a furor when her supporters compared it to the self-defense case of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted earlier this year of murdering an unarmed black teenager.

Although no one was injured in Alexander’s case, the court gave her a 20-year prison sentence under the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines because she had fired a gun during the assault.

A state appeals court ruled in September that Alexander, who is black, deserved a new trial because the judge failed to properly instruct the Jacksonville, Florida jury about her self-defense argument. She was convicted in May 2012.

“This news is vindication for Marissa and all the women who have become criminalized for exercising their basic right to defend themselves and their children,” Angie Nixon of Florida New Majority, a social justice organization, said of Alexander’s release.

The case drew criticism from civil rights groups concerned about self-defense laws and mandatory minimum sentencing rules, but it received little attention outside north Florida until the Zimmerman case.

Zimmerman was arrested for killing Trayvon Martin in 2012 and was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in July 2013.

Under the so-called “Stand Your Ground” clause which was added to Florida’s self-defense law in 2005, people who use deadly force to defend themselves from serious injury – rather than retreating to avoid confrontation – can be immune from prosecution.

Zimmerman never sought immunity under “Stand Your Ground,” instead relying on a standard self-defense law.

Alexander’s “Stand Your Ground” claim was rejected because she left the house during the confrontation to retrieve a gun from her car, returning to fire a shot near her husband Rico Gray’s head.

A slightly built woman who stands 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 meter), Alexander said her 245-pound (111 kg) husband was about to attack her when she fired into a kitchen wall during the August 2010 incident. He had previously been convicted of domestic violence for attacking her.

Prosecutors said the shot endangered Gray. At the time, Alexander had an active restraining order against her husband and she carried a concealed weapons permit.

© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Florida Releases Woman Jailed for 20 Years for Firing "Warning Shot"

California cops sued for firing Taser at teenager"s testicles

Published time: October 24, 2013 15:42

A policeman with the Taser X26 model in their holsters (AFP Photo / Jean-Pierre Muller)

A black teenager is suing the city of Richmond, CA after a local police officer reportedly tasered him in the testicles.

Andre Little, who was involved in the altercation at a train station with Officer Kristopher Tong, claims that both his civil rights and state laws were violated.

According to the lawsuit filed, Little said that he was waiting for a train when Tong moved toward him and asked if he was involved with another group of teens, also black, according to the Courthouse News Service. That group had been “previously detained for questioning,” but Little denied that he was associated with them.

Little claims that Tong then told him to move down to another section of the platform. When he refused, Tong and another officer reportedly pulled the teenager down to the ground as Little yelled that they had the wrong guy.

At this point, Little’s complaint states, “Tong then pulled out a Taser and pointed it at [Little"s] head.” The teen pushed the Taser away, but then Tong pointed the device at his scrotum, causing Little to shout, “Don’t tase me bro! Please don’t tase me in the balls! You don’t have to do this!”

According to the suit, though, Tong tasered the boy in the scrotum anyway, placed the teen on his stomach, and used the Taser one more time on his back.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that Little did not sufficiently prove that Tong singled the teen out or was motivated by race. She noted the complained failed to describe Little’s position relative to other passengers at the station as well as the group previously detained by the police.

“For instance, the complaint is silent as to whether Little was standing next to the previously detained young men, or whether Little was away from the men and/or among other non-African-Americans who were not questioned by Tong,” Corley wrote.

Still, Corley said that Little will be offered an opportunity to amend his suit in order to clarify the details of the situation.

“If it can be plausibly inferred that Tong approached Little and questioned him about his association with the detained African-American men because Little is also African-American, such racial animus provides the further plausible inference that Tong’s actions occurring in close temporal proximity — ordering Little to move down the platform and the use of force — were also motivated by racial animus,” the judge wrote.

RT – USAPost id = does not exist.

California cops sued for firing Taser at teenager"s testicles

Professor Calls For NRA Members To Be Shot By Firing Squad For Treason

A professor in West Virginia provides yet another example of the inescapable reality that the real threat to America, beyond a complicit media, is likely to be found in college classrooms.

Christopher Swindell, journalism professor at Marshall University, is calling on National Rifle Association members to be shot before a firing squad.

In an op/ed published in the Charleston Gazette on Thursday, Swindell offered his version of the “final solution” for supporters of the Second Amendment, as Independent Journal Review’s Michael Miller characterized his vile rhetoric.

Read More at joemiller.us . By Tom Tillison.

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Western Journalism

Professor Calls For NRA Members To Be Shot By Firing Squad For Treason