Zimmerman Prosecutor Again Accused of ‘Over-Charging’ Case

The prosecutor in charge of the Trayvon Martin murder case has won a case in which a woman received a 20-year jail sentence for trying to protect herself against her allegedly abusive husband.

Marissa Alexander fired a bullet into a wall as she tried to flee her husband, who was threatening to strangle her in August 2010.

Angela Corey (AP Photo)

Immediately, Democratic U.S. Rep Corinne Brown accused prosecutor Angela Corey of “over-charging” Alexander with aggravated assault. “There is no justification for 20 years,” Brown told Corey during a confrontation in the hallway of the Jacksonville, Fla. Courthouse, according to CNN.

Just last week, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that Corey is notorious for over-charging cases. He called for Corey to be removed from the Martin case, in which neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for shooting the unarmed teenager.

Alexander told the court she had tried to get away from her husband, Rico Gray, and got to her car in the garage only to realize she did not have her car keys, CNN reported. She picked up the handgun and went back into the house and when Gray threatened to kill her, she fired a warning shot into the wall.

Alexander attempted to invoke Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in her defense, but a previous judge in the case said that was not consistent with her decision to re-enter her house, according to CNN. The jury took just 12 minutes to find her guilty.

Judge James Daniel told Alexander on Friday that he had no option but to give her a 20-year jail sentence, CNN reported. “Under the state's 10-20-life law, a conviction for aggravated assault where a firearm has been discharged carries a minimum and maximum sentence of 20 years without regarding to any extenuating or mitigating circumstances that may be present, such as those in this case," Daniel said.

Corey claimed she had offered Alexander a three-year sentence in return for a guilty plea but said the 31-year-old woman had turned down the plea bargain.