Shots fired in air = 20 years update

[HYHYBT]

Sorry; I was going to add this to the original thread, but cannot get the search box to stay open long enough to type anything. Summary: Florida, of course; woman shoots into the air (or ceiling) to get her husband to let her out of the house; mandatory sentencing law requires 20 years prison.
http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis.r...catid=57433184

To which she's now been sentenced.

[TheHuckster]

I seriously don't understand this mandatory sentence law. Is there really any benefit to it, or is it just a ridiculous concept like zero-tolerance where nobody can stop and think about each situation and make an informed judgement accordingly?

I thought a judge's job was to consider all of the aspects of a case to, you know, make a judgement including sentencing. If a jury makes a verdict and all the judge can do is read what the predetermined mandatory sentence is, then why even have a judge after the verdict?

And what 12 nutjobs even found the woman guilty in the first place?!

[mikoyan29]

Maybe if she were a neighborhood watch person and shot an unarmed black kid, she might have gotten off.

[Nekojin]

Maybe if she were a neighborhood watch person and shot an unarmed black kid, she might have gotten off.

I wanted to make that comparison, but as the verdict hasn't come in yet for Zimmerman (and probably won't until tomorrow afternoon), I thought it would be inappropriate.

Thanks for letting me off the hook!

[lordlundar]

I seriously don't understand this mandatory sentence law. Is there really any benefit to it, or is it just a ridiculous concept like zero-tolerance where nobody can stop and think about each situation and make an informed judgement accordingly?

Funny, I see it as a law made so people actually stop to think before doing something stupid. This is not an avoidable accident. This is willful neglect of common sense and basic safety that has in the past been the cause of death in innocent lives. The direct cause is people not realizing that what they handle is a lethal weapon and being careless with it will get someone killed.

The law is the way it is so people realize that if they do something stupid like this they will ruin a life.

[Ginger Tea]

I'm guessing there are a few fatalities and injuries due to shots fired from the floor below hitting someone in the flat upstairs.
Works well in the westerns guy shoots gun bar fight stops, but there is normally nothing above that part of the bar like the brothel end.

But with enough wooden houses, a shot fired into a wall, might(?), make it's way into the next house 6 feet away and still hit something or someone before stopping.

Not a ballistics expert nor have I seen mythbusters recently or within the last few years to even know what it is and is not capable of doing.

But it does seem severe, if it hit someone, then yes it was a negligent discharge that resulted in death or injury, hell just a bullet whizzing from your floor boards would piss you off. But if it was a 2 story house and only they lived in it and were both in the same room, then he should count himself lucky she pointed up and not to the side, cos even if she was aiming to miss, he might duck to that side and get hit.

[HYHYBT]

The purpose of mandatory sentencing laws is to make candidates for office look "tough on crime" at the expense of allowing judges to exercise judgment as their title implies.

[TheHuckster]

Funny, I see it as a law made so people actually stop to think before doing something stupid. This is not an avoidable accident. This is willful neglect of common sense and basic safety that has in the past been the cause of death in innocent lives. The direct cause is people not realizing that what they handle is a lethal weapon and being careless with it will get someone killed.

Then this is another case of "if they don't know it might kill someone, they probably don't know they can get 20 years for it either." Unless they have billboards everywhere that states this law or she is had studied law, I can't see any reasonable person knowing that such a mandatory sentence even exists, thus totally negating its supposed purpose as a deterrent.

If, provided the evidence, she had unreasonably put other innocent people at risk by doing what she did, which when looking at the circumstances was a spur-of-the-moment move to defend herself from domestic abuse, then the judge can do his or her job and sentence her to whatever they see fit. That's what judges are for. It's very well possible she was criminally negligent and it's even possible she deserves 20 years. But this law doesn't even consider the possibility that, maybe, just maybe this particular instance needs to be looked at from another angle.

I'm not so much upset about the sentence as much as the idea that some people in congress decided her sentence well before she was even put up for trial, and effectively pre-empted the judge's authority at the same time.

[Ginger Tea]

Yeah, I haven't got a sausage when it comes to the average time served for minor to major offences, mostly cos I have a good idea that most things are considered illegal and not to be done.

I myself would not think that firing a pistol would for no matter the reason, land me in a mandatory 20 year stay in the klink.
There is firing a gun for shits and giggles and using a weapon as a deterrent and depending on the specifics (IE I've not read the OP link), shooting to miss should not be a longer sentence than what the husband may or may not have been planning.

[violiav]

So, if she'd fired at her husband she could have claimed "Stand your ground", but since she didn't it's 20 years?

Eta: I got the article to load on a different device. I'm betting she's getting a harsh punishment because she was married to the guy. if he'd been a total stranger she could have fired a round or two and gotten a much lighter sentence.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Well, here's the final tally. A white man in Florida kills a black teenager and is judged not guilty while a black woman fires warning shots and doesn't kill anyone gets 20 years.

There are no words to describe how disgusted at the situation I am.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, only one of them can be proven to have broken the law as it's written.

Don't worry, though, the guy who killed the kid (why does it matter that he was black?) is likely to get the shit sued out of him as soon as the family can file the papers which are like as not already drawn up.

[Sorin]

Actually from the court documents the situation does not look so good for the women.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/89763383/S...n-for-Immunity

For those who can't read it I'll sum it up. First the defendant did not live in the same house as her husband for 2 months. She went to his house, got in and stayed the night until the husband showed up in the morning with the kids. She showed him a picture of their newborn on her cell phone and as he looked at it he saw that there were texts from her ex starting an argument about if the newborn was actually his.

She then would go to her car and get her gun, returned and pointed it at her husband and the kids. After she shot at him, they ran and called 911. She was arrested but paid bail and went to the new place they were staying, against court orders, to attack the husband.

So I'm not all that sympathetic to this woman. I wonder if twenty years is a bit much but this case is not black and white.

[TheHuckster]

Actually from the court documents the situation does not look so good for the women.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/89763383/S...n-for-Immunity

For those who can't read it I'll sum it up. First the defendant did not live in the same house as her husband for 2 months. She went to his house, got in and stayed the night until the husband showed up in the morning with the kids. She showed him a picture of their newborn on her cell phone and as he looked at it he saw that there were texts from her ex starting an argument about if the newborn was actually his.

She then would go to her car and get her gun, returned and pointed it at her husband and the kids. After she shot at him, they ran and called 911. She was arrested but paid bail and went to the new place they were staying, against court orders, to attack the husband.

So I'm not all that sympathetic to this woman. I wonder if twenty years is a bit much but this case is not black and white.

Then whoever wrote the CBS News article is a dishonest dipshit. Oh, wait, that's right, this kind of asshattery in the media is nothing new.

[violiav]

I read a huffington post article that said the issue was Floridas 10-20-life sentancing rule. Even the drafters of the law said it wasn't intended for cases like this, but for criminals that hold up a gas station. I'll post the link when I can get to my laptop.