65-Year-Old “10-20-Lifer” Gets New Trial In Clay County

The article is by Morris News Service.  A 65-year-old Keystone Heights man sentenced to 20 years in jail for firing shots into the ground will be getting a new trial. Ronald Joseph Thompson had his conviction tossed out this week by Circuit Judge Don Lester and was released pending that new trial. The judge found that the jury instructions in Thompson’s original trial were misleading regarding the justifiable use of deadly and non-deadly force. A new trial is the latest twist in a saga that has wrapped Thompson in controversy over the state’s “10-20-Life” statutes. A jury convicted Thompson of four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm in a September 2009 shooting that occurred at a neighbor’s home. Clay County authorities said he fired at least two shots into the ground in the vicinity of a teenager and his friends after the boy got into a quarrel with his grandmother.  (Read Full Article Here)

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