Don't blame the jury. Blame the way the Florida law against "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon" is written:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/marissa-alexander-gets-20_n_1530035.html

The same law mandates a twenty-year sentence: in other words, the legislature gives the judge no choice in the matter. It also forbids parole for a crime involving the firing of a weapon. So she gets twenty years even though nobody was hurt. One of the legislator who wrote the law says he never intended it to apply to a situation like this: he was thinking of holdup men.

BTW, Alexander's jury (which took 12 minutes to convict) seems not to have been especially white.

Also BTW, Florida's actual "stand-your-ground law" appears to have helped black defendants slightly more than whites:

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/kyle-wingfield/2013/jul/17/stand-your-ground-and-race-numbers/