New Trial for Woman Sentenced for 20 Years
COSTELLO: Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law is in the news. Is it being applied fairly? Take the case of Marissa Alexander. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing off a gun to scare off her allegedly abusive husband. She got 20 years. Well, this morning, we've learned she will get a new trial. An appeals court ruling saying the jury was given improper instructions.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): For Marissa Alexander, it's another chance at freedom. Alexander's lawyer told her about the new trial by phone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's ecstatic, can't wait to get back with her family and to be vindicated.</s>COSTELLO: The Jacksonville mother of three was convicted of aggravated assault in March after just 12 minutes of deliberations. During the trial, Alexander claimed self-defense, saying she was attempted to flee her husband, Rico Gray, when she picked up a handgun.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you think you were going to do with it?</s>MARISSA ALEXANDER, DEFENDANT: I thought that I was going to have to protect himself. I've --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you thinking you might have to shoot him?</s>ALEXANDER: Yes, I did, if it came to that.</s>COSTELLO: She fired the gun into a wall. Nobody was hurt. Her initial defense against her allegedly abusive husband, Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, but that defense was turned down by a judge. The issue? Alexander could have left through the front door after the altercation. Instead, she went to the garage to get her car and leave, but she says she forgot her keys and went back inside the house with her weapon. She says she was terrified, became trapped.</s>ALEXANDER: He saw my weapon at my side, and when he saw it, he was even more upset and that's when he threatened to kill me.</s>COSTELLO: In Thursday's decision, the appeals court reversed her conviction saying she can use the self-defense claim but still won't be able to use stand your ground.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reaction is the same as it usually is, OK. There's a need to send the case back, it comes back.</s>COSTELLO: But for Marissa Alexander, it's not just another trial.</s>ALEXANDER: This is my life I'm fighting for. This is my life. And it's my life, it is not entertainment. It is my life.</s>COSTELLO: With me now is criminal defense attorney and CNN legal analyst Mark O'Mara, who successfully defended George Zimmerman in a self-defense case you well know. Welcome, Mark.</s>MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning. Good morning.</s>COSTELLO: Good morning. So, an appeals court judge ruled the jury was not instructed properly what is need to prove self-defense. But it seems kind of simple. Alexander said she was afraid of her husband. She had a gun. She said she used it to defend herself, seems simple enough.</s>O'MARA: Well, it should be. The problem with it is that the instruction the way it was presented to the jury suggested that Ms. Alexander had to prove that an aggravated battery was about to be committed by the eventual victim, the ex-husband. And obviously that burden shift takes it away from the state who carries the burden to prove everything beyond a reasonable doubt, and put it on Ms. Alexander, and that was inappropriate. So, thank God for the appellate court looking at the jury instruction.</s>COSTELLO: Does Florida "Stand Your Ground" law apply in Alexandra's case?</s>O'MARA: Well, jury, the judge made a decision that in the pretrial hearing, that she did not carry the burden so that decision has been addressed in the pretrial hearing but she can still argue self-defense and in effect she stood her ground to the jury. So that hasn't been taken away from her but the initial hearing suggested that she should still go to trial. So it still does apply, particularly the way she reacted to the perceived threat of force from Mr. Paul (ph).</s>COSTELLO: So, will her attorneys enter that into the equation? Or should they in your opinion?</s>O'MARA: I think they should. Again, "Stand Your Ground" is one small part of overall self-defense. This is a definite self-defense case. Ms. Alexander suggested properly that she was protecting herself from a perceived threat from him and that he was coming at her and that is traditional self-defense. And had the jury been instructed properly that it was the state's burden to disprove self-defense, she may very well have been acquitted. My greatest concern is the suggestion by the state that this was some technicality. This is not a technicality. This is due process and due process has never been a technicality in the state to realize there was a bad jury instruction and not do it again.</s>COSTELLO: Civil rights leaders also say race played a role in this. They say, if Alexandra had been white, she would have never gotten a 20-year sentence. Do they have a point?</s>O'MARA: Well, the problem is the way the state charged the case, the judge didn't have much discretion upon conviction because we have this 10, 20-life minimum mandatory sentencing. That really needs to be readdressed by the legislature. A case like this is the poster child for how this case should not have a 20-year minimum mandatory. The real question about a racial intone to this case is whether or not she was charged with a case or charged for which she could have gotten 20 years rather than a more appropriate charge, because the state could have charged her in which she wasn't facing 20 years.</s>COSTELLO: Criminal defense attorney, CNN analyst, Mark O'Mara -- thanks so much for joining me this morning.</s>O'MARA: Sure. Great to be here.</s>COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. Still to come this morning, A-Rod is not going to the playoffs, we know that. But he is heading to the commissioner's office. We'll tell you about the witness who will be waiting for him, next.