Mandatory Minimum Florida

[JamesVincent]

I've seen several references in high profile cases to Florida's mandatory minimum law involving crimes using a handgun and decided to start looking at it. Wiki has this to say about it:

The State of Florida has a very strict minimum sentencing policy known as 10-20-Life:, which includes 10 years mandatory prison time for using a gun during a crime, 20 years mandatory prison time for firing a gun during a crime, and 25 to life mandatory prison time in addition to any other sentence for shooting somebody, regardless of whether they survive or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_sentencing

Which is pretty much as I found it looking online. ( BTW, some of you lawyers on WIki, this article was written up for needing citations... hint hint)

Now the premise of the law was to provide stricter laws for individuals using a weapon in the commission of a crime, which I totally agree with. IIRC, and Wes may have to correct me, there is already a 5 year minimum for the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime Federally. However, it seems the application of the law created some bizarre sentencing issues. I looked at two different cases, one of which I believe is in the national news right now.

Marissa Alexander was one.

(CBS) - Last Friday, Jacksonville mother Marissa Alexander was sentenced by a Florida judge to 20 years in prison for firing what she says was a "warning shot" into the wall after a physical altercation with her husband, Rico Gray.

As I understand it, stand your ground doesn't apply since she retreated from the situation, retrieved a weapon, and then put herself back into the situation. Fine, seems like common sense to me, you get away from a situation you're scared off and don't go back. But 20 years seems a little harsh. I also understand that the defendant, according to other sources, returned to the same home 4 months later, breaking a court order to do so, and assaulted the same person so any leniency she would have gotten went right out the window and her charges were ramped up because of it.

Ronald Thompson was another.

Ronald Thompson of Keystone Heights is 65 and a 14-year Army veteran who has logged 5,000 hours of volunteer service at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lake City.

But for the crime of firing two gunshots into the ground to scare off some teenagers, he is serving 20 years in prison.

Unlike Alexander, Mr. Thompson did not retreat somewhere, he felt his friend's grandson was becoming violent and pulled his legally carried weapon and put two rounds into the ground in front of said grandson, so, again, stand your ground "didn't" apply, even though there's a possible case for it. I noticed he has asked for a new trial based on applying stand your ground and the ineffectiveness of his previous attorney.

My thoughts are this: In both cases the defendants fired "warning shots". If you have ever been trained to use a weapon you know very well that there is no such thing as a "warning shot". If you feel your, or someone else s live is in danger and feel that using a weapon is imperative, you fire center mass. You do not aim for the wall next to them, you do not aim for the ground in front of them, you aim dead center of the chest cavity and fire. Couple of reasons for this. A weapon is not a playtoy, you do not frighten people with it, you do not escalate a situation to that point UNLESS there is a clear and imminent danger to yourself or another. Another reason is you don't want someone else to get hit so you want something to stop the bullet. In Alexander's case the round ricocheted off the wall, entering a room where the couple's two boys were standing. So, yes, aggravated assault, in both cases, seems appropriate. 20 years does not.

I also have seen conjecture that mandatory minimum violates the right to be heard, by taking away the judges ability to mitigate sentencing based on circumstances. I saw both defendants were offered 3 year pleas based on a lesser charge but both refused and went to trial. In fact, the original judge in the Thompson case ordered a 3 year sentence since he felt that the mandatory minimum was unconstitutional but was overturned on appeal.

Thoughts?

[Olsenfin]

Warning shots are for naval vessels encountering smaller vessels.

"Well, OK, but why couldn't you have shot this man in the arm, or, better yet, shot his gun from his hand?"

Television westerns have much to answer for.

[JamesVincent]

The first case I talked about above, Marissa Alexander, has been successfully appealed on the grounds that the judge improperly give the jury instructions on how a self defense plea should work. I tried to find an article to link but was unable to find any that were not full of race baiting so I found the actual appellate court release.

http://media.graytvinc.com/documents/ma ... ruling.pdf

Convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing what she described as a warning shot intended to make her husband desist from physical abuse, Marissa Alexander argues the judgment against her (and her twenty year sentence) should be reversed on multiple grounds. We reject her contention that the trial court erred in declining to grant her immunity from prosecution under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, but we remand for a new trial because the jury instructions on self-defense were erroneous

[Jeffrey]

The coverage of the M.A. case is damn confusing. There was a HuffPo article I read about it that said that opponents of SYG laws and domestic violence advocates were supporting her. It seems to me like if you're opposed to SYG then M.A. getting convicted should be a good thing since she was unable to use SYG as a defense or if you wanted SYG repealed then why are you in favor of her using it as a defense. Then the same article buried the fact that M.A. was convicted of domestic battery against the same guy she shot at 4 months after the shooting, so if you're against domestic violence shouldn't you support M.A. being convicted? And somehow gun control activists are supporting M.A. which if you support gun control doesn't that mean you should be in favor of laws that have high sentences for crimes commited with a gun and thus support M.A.'s conviction? And then the media complains about the length of the sentence even though she was offered a plea agreement and rejected it.

And finally most disturbing is that the coverage always omits or tries to sidestep the fact that the kids were in the room next to the husband. I may be mistaken about this but to my understanding the shot placement meant she shot between the husband and the kids, hitting the wall.

It seems insane that this woman is getting largely positive press coverage for her actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/2 ... 95869.html

The article in question.

[JamesVincent]

The coverage of the M.A. case is damn confusing. There was a HuffPo article I read about it that said that opponents of SYG laws and domestic violence advocates were supporting her. It seems to me like if you're opposed to SYG then M.A. getting convicted should be a good thing since she was unable to use SYG as a defense or if you wanted SYG repealed then why are you in favor of her using it as a defense. Then the same article buried the fact that M.A. was convicted of domestic battery against the same guy she shot at 4 months after the shooting, so if you're against domestic violence shouldn't you support M.A. being convicted? And somehow gun control activists are supporting M.A. which if you support gun control doesn't that mean you should be in favor of laws that have high sentences for crimes commited with a gun and thus support M.A.'s conviction? And then the media complains about the length of the sentence even though she was offered a plea agreement and rejected it.

And finally most disturbing is that the coverage always omits or tries to sidestep the fact that the kids were in the room next to the husband. I may be mistaken about this but to my understanding the shot placement meant she shot between the husband and the kids, hitting the wall.

It seems insane that this woman is getting largely positive press coverage for her actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/2 ... 95869.html

The article in question.

That was one of the articles I had read and wouldn't use. Not only does it not bring up a lot of major issues, it brings race into it. There is nothing here racial, the woman committed a crime, an utterly stupid crime, and was convicted. The state says, for that type of crime you get 20 years, bamm, she got 20 years. So did the 65 year old white guy I also talked about above. Florida seems like a really good place to NOT do stupid things with a weapon, which was the point of the mandatory sentencing.

I see all these headlines "Justice for Alexander, guilt overturned" and so on. The Appeals court found a technical reason for appeal, not anything on the merits of the case. And they agreed that SYG did not apply. So, unless Corey offers her another plea, she still goes to jail for 20 years since that is the punishment for the crime committed. No matter what I do not see her being able to claim self defense when she left the situation, got a handgun, and then put herself right back into the situation, all the while violating a restraining order. And then fired a shot that barely missed 2 children standing in the room.