Florida justice: Kill an innocent...walk; kill a ceiling...get 20 years

Just about every mentally functioning American knows George Zimmerman was acquitted of any Florida state wrongdoing in the shooting death of unarmed neighborhood passerby Trayvon Martin. But likely just an infinitesimal number know about another Florida guntoter, Marissa Alexander, serving a 20 year sentence imposed in May, 2012, for her August, 2010, transgression of firing warning shots into her ceiling to dissuade her husband from administering another beating. She was convicted on charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon which carries a 20 year minimum sentence in Florida. Since Alexander aimed at the ceiling, prosecutors may have believed she intended her bullets would dislodge chunks of ceiling which would strike her abusive husband dead. It's possible.

Both verdicts deserve additional scrutiny. Everyone outraged by the Zimmerman verdict should join the NAACP petition requesting the US Justice Department investigate possible federal charges against Zimmerman for violating Martin's federally protected civil rights by killing him. And Ms. Alexander? I would argue that her 14 months served is sufficient punishment for first degree ceilingcide.