Injustice In Florida

Story.

Ronald Thompson of Keystone Heights is 65 and a 14-year Army veteran who has logged 5,000 hours of volunteer service at the VA Medical Center in Lake City.

Thompson is nearly blind, diabetic and has had multiple heart surgeries. In the last few years he's had surgery on his prostrate[sic] and to remove tumors from his face.

And he's in prison.

Two years ago, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison under Florida's mandatory minimum laws for firing two shots into the ground to scare off some teenagers. The judge was so appalled that he called the mandatory minimum sentence "a crime in itself" and sentenced him to three years instead of 20.

Click the link to read the rest. It's a case of the rigidity of "mandatory minimum" sentencing laws being applied in a way that is fundamentally unjust. Thompson is in prison because Fourth Circuit State Attorney Angela Corey, who is in the news more recently as the vengeful prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, appealed the 3-year sentence that the trial judge imposed.