​Marissa Alexander Faces 60 Years For Firing Warning Shots

Marissa Alexander, the Florida woman who was was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 20 years in prison, is set for a retrial in July. Even though her conviction was thrown out, State Attorney Angela Corey will try to send her back to jail for triple the sentence—twenty years per count. Really, there is someone in Florida who actually thinks that sentencing a woman to 60 years in prison, basically doling out a life sentence, for not killing anyone while she was being attacked is a sound, reasonable decision. And she’s the State Attorney.

As a reminder, Alexander was convicted and sentenced for firing warning shots—just warning shots—at her husband who, during an argument, attacked her. She is currently at home waiting for her retrial. As the Florida Times Union reports:

She has said the incident, which happened days after she’d given birth, began when Gray accused her of infidelity and questioned whether the newborn child was his.

Alexander told him to leave and locked herself in the bathroom until he broke through the door, grabbed her by the neck and shoved her to the floor.

She ran into the garage but found she couldn’t leave because the garage door wouldn’t open, according to the report.

She got a gun from the glove compartment of a car in the garage, went back into the house and when Gray saw her, she said he charged, saying he was going to kill her. Alexander fired the gun.

Alexander said it was a warning shot. Prosecutors dispute that and say the bullet hit the wall, not the ceiling, and it could have killed Gray or his children.

And despite invoking the Stand Your Ground law, you know, the law that is supposed allow the use of deadly force out of defense, the Circuit Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt ruled that Alexander probably wasn’t in “genuine fear” of her life.

So while people can’t decide whether or not a person killing an innocent black teenager is murder, apparently some people know exactly how they feel when it comes to black women standing up for their own safety and lives.

Image via AP.