A New Trial for Cory Maye

I’m going to break my own rule here to talk about some really good news I got today. I have been following the case of Cory Maye ever since  Radley Balko started blogging about it. You can find a summary of the case in Balko’s 2006 article here or watch this short reason.tv video. From wikipedia:

He was convicted of murder in the death of Prentiss police officer Ron W. Jones, during a drug raid in 2001. Maye pleaded not guilty at his trial, citing self-defense as his justification. His case attracted no attention until late 2005, when bloggers started drawing attention to it.

Bloggers supporting Maye say his conviction and sentence raise issues about the right to self defense, police conduct in the War on Drugs, and racial and social inequities in the region. They also raise questions about whether he has received competent legal representation.

Cory Maye is not a Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is not a Leonard Peltier. Cory Maye is a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The police mistakenly raided his home in search of drugs (on a tip from an unabashed racist). Maye was woken up in the middle of the night by what he thought was someone breaking into his house. Given that he lived in a bad neighborhood and he had his baby daughter to protect, Maye grabbed his gun and fired at the intruder in self-defense.

Unfortunately, the man who was shot was actually police officer Ron Jones. Maye did not know this at the time. When made clear after the shooting that the person he thought was trying to break into the house were actually the police, Maye immediately dropped his gun and surrendered.

While the prosecuters should have seen that this was simply a case of mistaken identity and a man defending his family and home from unknown intruders, Maye was subsequently charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was eventually taken off of death row, but was to serve life without parole instead.

I have been among the many people who believe that Cory was wrongly convicted. A legal team has been doing pro bono work trying to gain Cory’s freedom, but I had not heard any updates in a long time and I was not holding my breath.

I learned this afternoon that Cory has been granted a new trial by the Mississippi Court of Appeals! You can read the opinion here. This is great news. I hope Cory Maye can now get the fair trial that he deserves.

• Josh McCabe