A Florida woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot in a wall near where her husband was standing. Marissa Alexander says that she was defending herself against her husband who over the course of a year became abusive by choking and punching her. She believed she would've been protected by the controversial "Stand Your Ground Law" which kept George Zimmerman out of jail months after he shot and killed an unarmed 17 year old named Trayvon Martin, but a judge and jury didn't believe the law applied in the case of Ms. Alexander putting her away for 20 years.
Alexander's case has become the latest battleground in a fight against what Alexander's supporters call the misapplication of the Stand Your Ground Law and Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which offer stiff sentences for crimes involving guns. According to Florida's 10-20-Life statutes, anyone who pulls a gun during a crime receives a mandatory 10-year sentence. Firing a gun during the commission of a crime equals a mandatory 20-year sentence. Anyone convicted of shooting and killing another person during a crime is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.source: HP
