United Liberty

Great news broke yesterday. Cory Maye, who was convicted for the murder of Prentiss Police Officer Ron Jones during a botched drug raid, will receive a new trail.

For a detailed background on this case, you check out the work Radley Balko has done on Maye’s case over at Reason or watch Mississippi Drug War Blues, a video put together by Reason TV.

The short version of the story is that Maye was asleep in the living room of the home on December 26, 2001 and was awaked by noise outside. He lived in a duplex next a known drug dealer, who was actually named in the warrent obtained by police.

Maye grabbed a gun and went into his daughters room to protect her from what he thought was an intruder, contending that his actions were in self-defense. Upon entering the room, Officer Jones was shot three times. One of the rounds hit Jones below his bulletproof vest, and he died from internal bleeding.

According to Maye, it was a no-knock raid, meaning the police did not announce. He says he didn’t know the intruder was a police officer until after he had fired his weapon. The other officers involved say they announced before entering the home.

After receiving poor legal counsel, Maye was convicted and sentenced to death in 2004. His sentence has since been reduced to life without parole. His legal team, which includes Orin Kerr, petitioned the court for a new hearing earlier this year.

I’m afraid that despite this new development in the case, the Mississippi Court of Appeals has awarded Cory Maye a new trail because of venue, not because the testimony that put him in jail was inadmissible.

From the court’s opinion:

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have a right to…a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the county where the offense was committed.” Miss. Const. art. 3, section 26. Similar rights to be heard “by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…” are secured by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Maye had a fundamental constitutional right to be tried in Jefferson Davis County, where the death of Officer Ron Jones took place. Maye is entitled to a new trial because of the trial court’s erroneous refusal to allow his exercise of his right to be tried in Jefferson Davis County, the county wherein the offense for which he was being tried was committed. This Court finds that this case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial.

The court affirmed the testimony of Steven Hayne, the forensic pathologist from the original trail, which Maye’s attorneys object to. However, the testimony must come back before the court and since he testified, Hayne’s work and ethics have been subject to much scrutiny.

The odds are stacked against Maye, but he made it this far. I personally believe his story is plausible, because it is similiar to the Neal Street raid in Atlanta (when Kathryn Johnston (age 92) was killed by police during a no-knock raid).

I encourage you to check out the links above and see the story for yourself.