There are few, if any, positive aspects to the national spotlight and attention surrounding the George Zimmerman case.   A review of mandatory minimum sentences could be one of those outcomes. 
A new trial announced today in the case of Marissa Alexander.   Spotlighting a prosecutorial charge put upon by Angela Corey, the 4th District State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville Florida; and a mandatory 20 year minimum sentence imposed by the judge after conviction.
The case is controversial, not so much for the conviction, but more for the sentence.

Under Florida’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines Marissa Alexander was sentenced to TWENTY years in prison for firing a warning shot in her kitchen when her husband was confronting her.   They had a troubled, at times violent, history together.
Good construction of the factual backstory HERE. 
There are two sides to every story, and in this case the actual conviction –based on the evidence– as found by a jury, was correct.   However, the sentencing was excessive based on the actual event.  A sentence structured around a charge, and mandatory 10-20-life guideline when a firearm is used in the commission of a charged and convicted  felony. 
[excerpt from MSN News]  …  The 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee said in Thursday’s ruling that the trial judge made a “fundamental error” when he instructed the jury that Alexander was required to prove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
“The defendant’s burden is only to raise a reasonable doubt concerning self defense,” Appeals Court judge Robert Benton wrote for the court.
Local leaders from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Action Network have called for Florida Governor Rick Scott to pardon Alexander.
The groups have asked the governor to create a task force to investigate mandatory sentencing laws, which they say disproportionately affect black Americans. They also want an existing task force looking into Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law to examine how that statute has affected domestic violence victims.
Alexander was found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because her husband’s two children were in the house during the argument in August 2010.
A slightly built woman who stands 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 meter), Alexander said her 245-pound (111 kg) husband Rico Gray, was moving toward her threateningly when she fired into a kitchen wall. He had previously been convicted on a domestic violence charge for attacking her.
Gray’s two children were at home, in the living room. Prosecutors said the shot endangered Gray and the children.
Alexander filed a “Stand Your Ground” claim, but a judge ruled against her because Alexander chose to go back into the house with her gun.
A jury took just 12 minutes to find her guilty of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.  (read full article)

*Note* as part of the ongoing investigation into the 4th SAO office of Angela Corey, I coincidentally talked to several people within law enforcement in Jacksonville.   To a person, each of them stated this example of Corey choosing to prosecute Alexander under the felony assault with a deadly weapon, which led to the mandatory sentence, was in their words “ridiculous”.