George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin and won’t spend a second behind bars. Marissa Alexander fired her gun as a warning to scare off her husband who she said was threatening her and was sentenced to 20 years.
According to the NYDailyNews.com the case of Alexander, a 31-year-old woman living in Jacksonville, Fla., has emerged as Exhibit A for people who say Zimmerman’s acquittal illustrates how the U.S. justice system wasn’t created to serve justice to Black people.
“This African-American woman didn’t hurt anyone and now she might not hug her children for twenty years,” wrote U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) following Alexander’s conviction in May of last year.
Reportedly Alexander only fired shots after her husband said, “If I can’t have you, nobody going to have you.”
Alexander’s attorney invoked the “Stand Your Ground Law,” a law we all know very well now that gives the benefit of the doubt to a shooter who feels their life is in danger.
That argument won Zimmerman his freedom, but it didn’t in Alexander’s case. Prosecutors argued that Alexander fired in the direction of her husband and two of his children, endangering their lives.
Her actions ended up being a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Because Alexander fired the gun while committing a felony, Florida’s harsh gun laws required the 20-year sentence.
“If women who are victims of domestic violence try to protect themselves, the Stand Your Ground Law will not apply to them,” wrote Brown, who added, “If you are black, the system will treat you differently.”
This is evident being that it took a nation for Zimmerman to even be arrested and then once finally brought to court he walked away a free man with not a guilty verdict. Meanwhile, there is a young Black teenager dead and a Black woman facing 20-years in prison for failing to harm her husband.
