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posted by janrinok on Friday September 02 2016, @06:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the notorious dept.

Common Dreams reports

Reviled Florida State Attorney Angela Corey lost her reelection bid on [August 30], prompting widespread celebration as the woman The Nation once suggested was "the cruelest prosecutor in America" was ousted.

"Corey's loss is an encouraging sign that the public will no longer tolerate overzealous and unprincipled criminal prosecutions, including women and children", University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks said in a statement.

Corey, whose eight-year tenure in Florida's Fourth Judicial Circuit Court saw her charge 77 children as adults in 2016 alone and sentence more people to death than any other Florida prosecutor, gained widespread notoriety for her inadequate prosecution of Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman, and for seeking a 60-year sentence for Marissa Alexander, a domestic violence survivor with three children, for firing a warning shot in the direction of her abusive husband. (Alexander spent three years in prison.)

[...] Corey was defeated by unknown opponent and corporate lawyer Melissa Nelson, who will now face off with write-in candidate Kenny Leigh in the general election--although Jacksonville media noted that no write-in candidate has ever been elected to the state attorney position in Florida, and that Leigh has yet to make a single campaign appearance.


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  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday September 03 2016, @11:34AM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday September 03 2016, @11:34AM (#396994)

    Snark aside, I'm quite serious about point (1) above: don't involve a weapon unless you actually have lethal intent. Shoot to kill or don't draw, there is no "wing" or "warning". Any application of lethal force in a less-than-lethal manner is misuse and/or torture, and there's no place for it in U.S. law.

    Your points are valid from a strictly legal perspective, but I suspect for a lot of people actually shooting to kill someone involves a lot of moral complications for them. Using that reasoning, frightening someone off is a far better outcome, they themselves are safe and they have not hurt anyone. That said, maybe her lawyer should have told her to say she missed, but I suppose the cops got her story before she ever talked to a lawyer.

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