Marissa Alexander could be slapped with a 60-year prison sentence, triple the length of her original 20-year sentence, when she goes up for retrial in July for aggravated assault, the Florida Times-Union reports.
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According to reports, State Attorney Angela Corey will now push to have the entire 60 years served if Alexander is convicted again, essentially condemning the 33-year-old to life imprisonment.
In 2012 Alexander was convicted on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She claims she fired a warning shot to ward off her estranged husband during an argument, invoking Florida's "Stand your ground" law. She contended that her husband was emotionally and physically abusive, which led to the firing of the weapon. Circuit Judge James Daniel originally ordered her to serve three separate 20-year sentences concurrently under Florida’s 10-20-life law, the Times-Union notes.
According to the site, her conviction was tossed out after an appeals court ruled that Judge Daniel erroneously placed the burden on Alexander to prove she was truly acting in self-defense.
She was released on bail in November of last year and remained in home detention as of Jan. 10 to await her trial, which is scheduled for July 28.
Read more at First Coast News.
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