ionosphere-negate:

20 Years for Standing Her Ground

A Florida woman faces prison after firing a warning shot to scare off an abusive husband.

 | May 2, 2012

Marissa Alexander“I got five baby mammas, and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one,” Rico Gray confessed during a November 2010 deposition. “The way I was with women…they had to walk on eggshells around me.” He recalled punching women in the face, shoving them, choking them, and tossing them out the door.

Yet somehow, after one of those women fired a warning shot into the ceiling of her Jacksonville, Florida, home to scare him away during yet another violent outburst, prosecutors managed to convince a jury that Gray was the victim. As a result, Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of three, faces 20 years in prison for standing her ground against an abusive husband.

Gray has been arrested twice for domestic battery, including an assault that sent Alexander to the hospital. 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.

“The gun was never pointed at me,” Gray said. “She just didn’t want me to put my hands on her anymore, so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt.” If his sons hadn’t been in the house, Gray said, “I probably would have tried to take the gun from her,” and “I probably would have put my hand on her.”

But at the July 2011 hearing where Alexander argued that the charges against her should be dismissed because she had acted in self-defense, Gray—who immediately after the fight portrayed her as the aggressor, then said in his deposition three months later that he had lied out of anger—changed his story again, saying he had lied in his deposition to protect her. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Senterfittrejected Alexander’s motion to dismiss, saying she could have escaped through the front or back door instead of going to the garage.

Yet 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.

On March 16, after deliberating for 12 minutes, a jury convicted Alexander on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Although she injured no one, she faces a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence unless she can win a new trial.

If it was too TL;DR for you, this is the summary:

In her Florida home, a woman shot a warning bullet over her abusive husband’s head after he violated the protective order that she pressed against him and forced his way into her home in a jealous rage when he learned that she sent a picture of their newborn to her first husband.

This man has been convicted of extreme battery toward women, including punching them in the face, choking them, shoving them, and literally throwing them out of his house. Alexander, the woman in this story, was even put in the hospital after one of his outbursts.

When he forced his way into the house, he cornered her in the bedroom and threatened her with murder, claiming that “if he can’t have her, no one will”.

When she was able to get past him, she ran into the garage, realized she didn’t have her car keys, didn’t have her phone, and the garage door wasn’t working.

So, instead, she grabbed her handgun from within the car and confronted him, shooting a warning with the gun.

Because of this incident, this woman has been convicted with “three counts of assault with a deadly weapon” and faced the state’s minimum of 20 years in prison unless she can get a new trial.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - in a SANE world, this woman would be praised for her courage, standing up for life and her children after a history of abuse from this man.

LOL, NOT IN FLORIDA.

See, in a SANE world, this would be a black-and-white case of SELF-DEFENSE, just as she claimed, and even the “Stand Your Ground” law would protect her. (You know, the same damn law that protected Zimmerman when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin?)

Except “Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt rejected Alexander’s motion to dismiss, saying she could have escaped through the front or back door instead of going to the garage.”

Lol, that logic can be applied to everything!

“IT’S NOT RAPE BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T STRUGGLE/SCREAM LOUD ENOUGH.”

“IT’S NOT THEFT BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T HOME TO CATCH THEM STEALING.”

“IT’S NOT MURDER BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T FIGHT HARD ENOUGH.”

“IT’S NOT KIDNAPPING BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T TRY TO ESCAPE AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT.”

“IT’S NOT CHILD MOLESTATION BECAUSE THE PARENT WASN’T THERE TO KEEP AN EYE ON THEIR CHILD.”

“IT’S NOT DOMESTIC ABUSE IF YOU DON’T LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.”

This woman faces 20 years in prison because she fired her gun at the ceiling to WARN the man who ADMITS he’s violently abusive and has attacked her before … but Zimmerman was let off immediately after he INTENTIONALLY shot and MURDERED a teenager.

At least here in Texas, you are more than encouraged to shoot and kill anyone who threatens your life.

(via ionosphere-negate-deactivated20)

Source: lalibertarienne

Florida Passed New Law Allowing Mandated School Prayer

Or, as the Floridian legislators claim, “inspirational messages”.

http://floridaindependent.com/74203/charles-van-zant-school-prayer

The law allows schools, K-12, to force kids to undergo “inspiration messages” during school events and activities. The legislators want to claim that it isn’t fucking “school prayer”, that it doesn’t say anything in the provisions that claim such.

However, there’s no set provision to begin with. No restriction on what would constitute as a “inspirational message” - meaning it can be anything from spreading a hate speech against homosexuals, to it telling seven-year-olds that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, dinosaurs never existed, and you’re automatically going to Biblical Hell if you’re a girl.

Here’s what the House sponsor tried to say:

“We [changed] that because we thought that wouldn’t go again this year. We got the attorneys in the senate and house together and asked for language that would pass U.S. and Florida Constitutional muster. They came up with the words “inspirational message.”

…

I ran the bill as a First Amendment issue. in our constitutions, we’re guaranteed freedom of speech. We teach children to speak, and this gives them the opportunity to speak out in school. It doesn’t mix church and state. It’s really why we have free speech in this country, so people can bring forth these issues freely.

And the bill has no concern about what they talk about. They can talk about whatever they want. after all the billions and billions of dollars training teachers, and building school and buying buses and the billions we’ve put into classroom education, they should be able to say whatever they want to say.”


He wants to claim that it ISN’T mandated school prayer, except he later claimed that the reason why we have violence, unwed mothers, and overall disobedience is because of the “absence of prayer in school”. Allow me to embolden the parts where he makes it plain as day that he’s saying one thing, but really meaning another:

“All the opposition I got from this bill is from people afraid that someone might use the words Jesus Christ or might actually pray. Many called what we’re doing a euphemism for school prayer. i would make the point that school prayer was abolished by ignorant judges 50 years ago. And that 50 years is a history lesson in what happens to a society that removes prayer.

You can look at the many social ills in our country that have developed in those 50 years. Before we took out school prayer, the biggest problems in school were talking out of turn or chewing gum. Today, the problems are drug abuse, teen pregnancy, rape and assault. School problems speak for themselves. By allowing for inspirational messages, those problems will be addressed.”


Notice that he wants to claim that the problems we have today are not what we had fifty years ago because of his conclusion that schools had MANDATED school prayer … and the he then claims that the only way to fix the problems today is to allow “inspiration messages”.

That means talking about fucking Jesus. How stupid does this douchebag actually take me for?

Ignoring the fact that 50 years ago parents were also raising their kids and not letting videogames babysit for them, schools dealt with bullies much better than today, and we had stricter laws concerning minors possessing weapons and drugs, religious prayer also preached hate against Jews, homosexuals, and fucking BLACKS, and women were still not taken seriously. So, fifty years ago, it was an automatic exile from society and/or a death sentence if you were any of these.

Maybe if we had more than just fucking 3% of our tax dollars going to the ENTIRETY of our educational system, we wouldn’t have the crime and civil disobedience that we do now - just a fucking thought.

Then again, what do I fucking know? I’m just some female busy getting her degree in Web Design; I don’t know shit about law or the Constitution, or common sense and logic for that matter, right?

(Fucking side note: Since when did Florida start making it their goal to steal “The Asshole State” title from Texas?)