In the winter of 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by George Zimmerman while walking through a suburban neighborhood in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman’s defenders argued the killing was justified because Zimmerman felt threatened and was protected under the state’s “stand your ground” law.
The law did not apply to Marissa Alexander. After reading text messages she had written to her ex-husband, Alexander’s husband became angry. He tried to strangle her. Fearing for her life, Alexander reached for a pistol and fired a warning shot into the wall.
No one was hit, no one was hurt, but she pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault.
After her initial 2012 conviction was overturned because of courtroom technicalities, Alexander, 34, accepted a plea deal rather than face a new trial which could have imprisoned her for sixty years. She left prison on Tuesday, though she will serve two years of house arrest and must wear an ankle monitor during that time.
Alexander’s case is particularly difficult to understand given Florida’s excessively lenient views on self-defense. The state’s stand your ground law – the same one argued by both Zimmerman and Alexander – states that:
“A person is justified in using or threatening lethal force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself…”
The law goes on to say that any individuals in accordance with the above “does not have a duty to retreat…[if they] are not engaged in a criminal activity” and if they are “in a place where he or she has a right to be.”
By all accounts, Alexander could certainly, reasonably believe that she was under an immediate danger of bodily harm. She was not engaged in criminal activity, and – I think we can all agree – everyone has a right to be in their home.
But prosecutors were able to argue that because Alexander fired in the vicinity of her husband’s two children, she was putting their life at risk.
“I was not hurt physically, but I was hurt emotionally and mentally,” 15-year-old Pernell Gray testified during the trial.
Various civil rights groups have applauded Alexander’s release. Supporters displayed pieces of a red quilt memorializing victims of rape and abuse outside of her hearing.
“Self-defense is not a crime. Marissa should not be doing time,” they chanted outside the courthouse.
— lizj (@sepia_chic) January 28, 2015
“Marissa’s story resonates with people because it was a victimless crime,” civil rights organizer Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson said. “There is no justice in it.”
While a jury acquitted Zimmerman of charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter, he was arrested earlier this month for aggravated assault after throwing a wine bottle at his girlfriend. Though on bail, he is, for the moment, a free man.
