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Fla. Woman in Stand Your Ground Case Released

Marissa Alexander, a Florida woman awaiting a new trial in a controversial "stand your ground" case, is free on bond.

(Photo: Courtesy of Florida State Attorney's Office)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville woman awaiting a new trial in a controversial "stand your ground" case is free on bond.

First Coast News reports that Marissa Alexander was released from jail Wednesday. According to the Duval County Clerk of Court, she must remain under house arrest while awaiting trial.

In 2012, Alexander was sentenced to a mandatory 20-year prison sentence for firing what she insisted was a warning shot during a fight with her husband. She tried to invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law, but the judge threw out her self-defense claim.

An appeals court ruled in September that the judge in the case gave improper jury instructions.

Alexander says she fired a bullet at a wall in 2010 to scare off her husband when she felt he was threatening her.

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