In a few months, Marissa Alexander, the
Jacksonville, Florida, woman who
received a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence in 2012 for
firing a gun during a fight with her abusive husband, will have a
second chance to make her case that she was acting in self-defense.
Alexander, who says she fired a warning shot because she was afraid
her husband would seriously injure or kill her,
won a second trial by arguing on appeal that Circuit Judge
James Daniel erroneously imposed the burden of proof on her in his
jury instructions. But thanks to another decision by the same
appeals court, Alexander’s prison term if she is convicted this
time around could be
three times as long as the one she originally
received—effectively a life sentence for actions that injured no
one.
Alexander, who was freed on bail last November after 21 months
behind bars, is charged with three counts of aggravated assault
with a deadly weapon because her husband was accompanied by two of
his children during the confrontation. Under Florida’s notoriously
harsh sentencing rules for crimes involving guns, each of those
counts carries a 20-year term. Daniel made the terms concurrent,
since all three charges arose from the same act. But last year the
First District Court of Appeal
ruled that state law “expressly authorizes consecutive
mandatory minimum sentences” in such a situation.
Whether “authorizes” means “requires” is not completely clear
from the decision. But the language of the statute suggests that
judges have no discretion in the matter, saying “the court
shall impose any term of imprisonment provided for in this
subsection consecutively to any other term of imprisonment imposed
for any other felony offense.” Assistant State Attorney Richard
Mantei, the lead prosecutor in Alexander’s case,
maintains that a 60-year sentence will be legally required if
she is convicted again. But University of Florida law professor
George Dekle, a former prosecutor,
says such an outcome would create the appearance of
vindictiveness, which could give Daniel, who is still overseeing
the case, a reason to stick with the original sentence, or at least
give Alexander grounds for appeal.
Other Florida appeals courts have reached different conclusions
about the propriety of consecutive mandatory minimum sentences for
charges arising from the same course of conduct. That issue also
came up in the case of
Michael Dunn, who last month was convicted on three counts of
attempted murder for firing a gun at an SUV full of teenagers after
an argument over loud music at a Jacksonville gas station in 2012.
If Dunn’s sentences for those offenses and a related charge are
imposed consecutively, his total prison term will be 75 years,
compared to 20 years if he serves the sentences concurrently.
Ultimately the Florida Supreme Court will have to settle the
question of which approach is correct.
Whatever the court decides, one thing is clear: If a 20-year
prison term was a grossly disproportionate sentence for Marissa
Alexander, which it surely was, the equivalent of a life sentence
is, or should be, unthinkable. Even if you do not buy her story,
even if you believe she fired more in anger than in fear, the time
she has already served (nearly two years) should be adequate
punishment for firing a single round into the ceiling. Mantei
complains that “Ms. Alexander has rejected all efforts by the
State to resolve the case short of trial.” But if all of the
state’s offers have involved additional time in prison, as seems
likely, the responsibility for the enormous injustice predicted by
Mantei lies with him, not with Alexander. If he takes seriously his
responsibility to seek justice and not merely convictions, he will
try harder to avoid a trial.
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