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Angela Corey's defeat and how the Internet reacted

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- To some surprise, Tuesday night's primary election ended in multiple upsets for once favored incumbents, contributing to the overall reshaping of the entire North Florida political terrain. The most nationally recognized event of the night was Angela Corey's defeat though.

Credit: Pool Getty Images
State Attorney Angela Corey. (Photo by Gary Green/The Orlando Sentinel-Pool/Getty Images)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- To some surprise, Tuesday night's primary election ended in multiple upsets for once favored incumbents, contributing to the overall reshaping of the entire North Florida political terrain. The most nationally recognized event of the night was Angela Corey’s defeat though.

Melissa Nelson, a candidate once viewed as an underdog in the Fourth Judicial Circuit race, walked away from the Republican primary with 64 percent of the vote, defeating her Republican incumbent, Corey, who earned a mere 26 percent.

Corey's impending defeat on Tuesday night was foreseen by some. As it turned out, the polls coming from the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida had it right from the beginning.

STORY: UNF poll shows Nelson in commanding lead over Corey

Nelson, a former criminal prosecutor under the veteran incumbent, will move on to face an all but already defeated write-in candidate, Kenny Leigh, whose law firm recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

You could say the road ahead for Nelson more than likely leads to the position of State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit, but you probably can’t say what’s next for Corey after losing by more than 49,000 votes.

To make matters worse, Corey's biggest critics took to the Internet following the announcement of her defeat with a bevy of social media posts that ranged from passive aggressiveness to outright celebration. Then again, this isn't the first time she has felt a large amount of public resentment.

Corey first gained national attention in 2011 when she oversaw a case regarding 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez, who was arrested for the murder of his two-year-old brother. Fernandez was charged as an adult on Corey's recommendation that the juvenile system was not equipped to handle crimes of this magnitude.

Corey again stood in the national spotlight a year later when she was appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to preside as Special Prosecutor over the investigation into the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by 28-year-old George Zimmerman in what would be portrayed as a self-defense related incident.

Despite charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder following the nationally covered investigation, Corey suffered severe backlash after her prosecution was unable to convince the jury that Zimmerman was guilty of the crime.

Corey suffered even more negative attention in 2012 when she prosecuted a 31-year-old black female from Jacksonville, Fla. for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Marissa Alexander, who had no previous arrest record, sought a similar “stand your ground” defense as Zimmerman, but was unsuccessful and received a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years.

Coincidentally, another defeated incumbent of Tuesday night’s primary elections, Corrine Brown, weighed heavily on the correlation between the two cases and insinuated Corey was a proponent of institutional racism. One advocacy group, Color of Change, called for Corey’s resignation following the jury’s decision in Alexander’s trial.

One of Corey’s more notable critics Tuesday night was Grammy Award-winner John Legend, who wrote to the Florida Times-Union in a statement saying, “Today the voters in Jacksonville and throughout Florida’s 4th Judicial Circuit have decided that Angela Corey failed in that responsibility by aggressively seeking the death penalty and egregiously charging juveniles, particularly those of color, as adults.”

Legend would go on to say that he is personally applauding the voters for rejecting Corey’s tactics and how this defeat of the incumbent is a “sign of positive things to come in our fight for a #FREEAMERICA.”

Other notable figures such as Questlove from the Grammy Award-winning band, The Roots, and the popular left-leaning magazine, The Nation, took to Twitter in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s primary election in Florida.

While most of Corey’s critics slammed her for the "mishandling" of both the Zimmerman and Alexander cases, not much has been mentioned of her 94 percent conviction rate or the decrease in violent crimes seen around the city of Jacksonville. Corey claims that the decrease in numbers are directly related to violent repeat offenders being successfully convicted and sent to prison.

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