Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots

[timmah]

Mr Khan said:

timmah said:

Mr Khan said:

And people said i was race-baiting in the Zimmerman thread. Flip around the participants and even a non-lethal (no injury!) outcome nets decades of jail.

This isn't even close to just flipping around an identical story. If Zimmerman had gone back to his car, grabbed a gun, then shot at Trayvon while not being attacked (which it sounds like this woman did to her ex), he would have been convicted. The sentence is way, way too harsh due to the mandatory sentencing law, but it's not even close to an identical story... not remotely.

Taken from the CBS News story:

"Alexander pushed past Gray and went into the garage where she got her gun from her car's glove compartment.

 

Gray told prosecutors in the deposition that Alexander came back into the house holding the weapon and told him to leave. He refused, and what happened next is somewhat unclear. In his deposition, Gray said "she shot in the air one time," prompting him and the children to run out the front door. But when Gray called 911 the day of the incident, he said "she aimed the gun at us and she shot." "

They were arguing, she went PAST HIM into the garage and got her gun, CAME BACK INSIDE and shot it near him WHILE HE HAD THE KIDS!!!! How in the everloving hell is this even close to the Zimmerman story? People are REAAAAALY reaching for straws, apparently.

Because nobody died. If anything, this lady should be walking free and Zimmerman should have the twenty.

Zimmerman was on the ground being beaten, this was corroborated by eyewitness testimony and physical evidence. Based only on the evidence, the law is exceedingly clear that he had a right to defend himself at that moment. Don't like the law, think he should have just lied down and let himself be beaten into unconsciousness? Fine, we can definitely disagree on that. It's a strange opinion to have, but you're entitled to it. The jury has to decide based only on evidence, the evidence supported Zimmerman's story and the self defense argument, so based on the law, that case should not have been brought to trial. Don't like the law? Fine, but the law is what the case was about, not all the racial 'stuff' that got injected by the media.

In this case, the woman discharged a weapon in a domestic argument, this is against the law unless she actually is in danger. She clearly wasn't in danger as she was able to get past her husband once, get the gun out of her car without incident, then had the upper hand when she came back inside (since she had a gun out and pointed at him). At this point, since she was not in danger (though he was), and she never even alleged he tried to come at her while she had the gun on him, so she could not legally fire at him and have it be self defense. Again, the law is there and is pretty clear, and she broke it in this case. The sentence is incredibly harsh, but juries cannot inject their own opinion and have to make decisions based on the laws on the books.

EDIT: One of the jury members in that case was a black woman, so if this were racially motivated, why did deliberations only take 12 minutes when just one holdout could have made the process take days? 12 minutes of deliberations means it was a pretty clear-cut case even for the african-american woman on the jury. I'll say it again, I agree that the sentence is far too harsh, but comparing this to the Zimmerman trial is so far past grasping at straws that it stinks of desparation (or the OP not getting all the details before posting).