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. (more…)

Gee, I wonder why you never heard of this race-based mass shooting incident in North Carolina, which took place while the trial of George Zimmerman was ongoing ?   Hmmm… couldn’t possibly be because the media hold any disposition toward not spotlighting race-based spree shootings when the black attacker specifically asserts his chosen targets were white people. No, wait…
GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A man who shot four people near a Greenville Wal-Mart in June picked out his victims because they were white, according to several indictments handed down against him.

Lakim Faust had more than 100 rounds of ammunition when he started shooting at people at a law firm and a shopping center in June, authorities said.
A grand jury indicted Faust on 14 charges Monday, including four counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Faust, who is black, picked out his victims based on their race, according to the indictments. The documents didn’t specify why Faust wanted to shoot white people, and police have not talked about why he picked out his targets. (more…)

This really is no surprise.  We have well documented how the average Egyptian held disdain for President Obama based on the reality that Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi; while Morsi was slaughtering Christians, taking over the courts, and even allowing Christian crucifixions to take place immediately outside his residence.
The average Egyptian does not welcome political Islam, terrorists, Jihadists and extremists.   They have tasted freedom and like the people in Western Libya they are not going to accept Salafist dictates and Sharia type governance;  all of which were supported by the insufferable duplicity and willful blindness of Senator John McCain, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Secretary John Kerry and the entire Obama administration. 
So this recent example of the Egyptian sentiment should be expected.  –  Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy told the London-based Al-Hayat daily that Egyptian relations with the U.S. were “turbulent” and the Egyptian public has “unprecedented negative views” toward the United States. (more…)

We’ll have more on this later…..   The Store Manager is in critical condition at Eden Valley Medical Center.   Friends  and family have said he is unable to recognize anyone, including his wife.  (story link)

Employees and friends said Moe is a great boss and a great friend.

A few things become concerning with the information coming out.   At the top of that list comes the fact most of the terrorists *travelled to* the country to carry out the attack passing through multiple security levels.
New York Times […]  The building’s blueprints were studied, down to the ventilation ducts. The attack was rehearsed and the team dispatched, slipping undetected through Kenya’s porous borders, often patrolled by underpaid — and deeply corrupt — border guards.

A day or two before the attack, powerful belt-fed machine guns were secretly stashed in a shop in the mall with the help of a colluding employee, officials say. At least one militant had even packed a change of clothes so he could slip out with fleeing civilians after the killings were done. (more…)

Last week U.S. liberals coast to coast were proclaiming that Pope Francis was welcoming to Homosexuality, endorsing of Abortion rights, and darn near a Democrat.  They thought they had their Pope Heinous The Great…. 
Now this….
…..  [Telegraph]  From all of last week’s headlines saying that the Pope wants to forget this nonsense about abortion and gays, you’d imagine that Germaine Greer had been elected to run the Catholic Church. Actually what the Pope was saying was that he wants the Church to talk more about what it’s for than what it’s against. But that doesn’t mean it won’t still be against those things that contradict its teachings and traditions.
Just ask Greg Reynolds of Melbourne – a priest who appears to have been both defrocked and excommunicated because of his radical views on women clergy and gay marriage. From Australia’s The Age:
(more…)

Stop me when you’ve heard this one before.   Three black teenagers punch a…..  [this should not be a surprise when you consider THIS]
NEW JERSEY – Three New Jersey boys, two age 13 and one 14, have been arrested and charged with killing a homeless man after allegedly stalking and killing him in what police are calling a game of ‘knockout.’
The teens are accused of following Ralph Santiago, 46, and punching him in the back of the head in broad daylight in Hoboken, New Jersey, on September 10.
He fell against a fence and snapped his neck, killing him. His body was left on the quiet residential street before it was discovered by a passerby.
The boys were taken into custody and charged on Friday after prosecutors released surveillance images of the suspects in the hopes of identifying whoever killed Mr Santiago. (more…)

Sounds like David Cameron and Barack Obama have similar dispositions toward terrorism and Islam.   If they coordinate messaging, and work at it hard enough, the narrative stemming from the Kenyan Mall Massacre could be considered “angry shoppers resort to violence“….

[…]  The attack saw men, women and children slaughtered if they could not recite the Koran or name the mother of the Prophet Mohammed.  (link)

(Londonistan)  Speaking on Sunday, Cameron said he had offered the Kenyan authorities “every assistance” in a call to President Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost members of his own family in the attack.
The prime minister stressed that the perpetrators did not represent the majority of Muslims but had carried out the atrocity “in the name of terror, violence and extremism”.
He added: “These appalling terrorist attacks that take place, where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion – they don’t. They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism and their warped view of the world.”   (read more)
Meanwhile, in the real world, a good approach continues in Egypt…. (more…)

Looks and sounds like the IDF were instrumental in ending the hostage crisis and taking back the Mall from the terrorists.   Thank You Israel.
(Via Daily Mail)  The FBI is investigating claims that up to  five of the terrorists who killed 68 people in a despicable attack on an  upmarket Kenyan shopping mall are Americans, as the Kenyan military reported  that it had rescued hostages and secured  ‘most parts’ of the center following the two day standoff.
Sources close to terror group Al Shabaab told  CNN on  Sunday that nine extremists had been named on their Twitter account along with  their nationalities and allegedly included U.S. citizens. The account has now  been suspended by the site.
And just before sundown Kenya Defence Forces  posted on its Twitter account that ‘most of the hostages hostages have been  rescued’ and that security forces had taken control of ‘most parts of the  building’ – however, the operation is still continuing and only a small number  remained under the control of the militants.
The dramatic assault, which began shortly  before sundown, came as two helicopters circled the Westgate mall, with one  skimming very close to the roof.  (continue reading)

(UK Independent)  While the Assad regime in Damascus has denied responsibility for the sarin gas missiles that killed around 1,400 Syrians in the suburb of Ghouta on 21 August, information is now circulating in the city that Russia’s new “evidence” about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold.
They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. These details cannot be verified in documents, and Vladimir Putin has not revealed the reasons why he told Barack Obama that he knows Assad’s army did not fire the sarin missiles; but if the information is correct – and it is believed to have come from Moscow – Russia did not sell this particular batch of chemical munitions to Syria. (more…)