The strange tale of Cory Maye

This story will likely be upsetting to many readers. While I recently talked about the impending execution of Tookie Williams over at Running Scared, half way across the country there is another young black man sitting on Death Row with a very different story. In Mississippi, Cory Maye is awaiting execution as a cop killer, and the facts of the case show conclusively that he did, indeed, kill a police officer. But there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. The Agitator provides most of the details.

Maye today sits on Mississippi's death row, convicted of capital murder for shooting police officer Ron Jones. It's probably worth mentioning that Jones is white, and Maye is black. It's probably also worth mentioning that at the time of his death, Jones' father was police chief of Prentiss, Mississippi, where the shooting took place. It's probably also worth mentioning that the jury who convicted Maye was white.

You may think that things are already smelling a tad fishy, but that's hardly enough to go on. Wait. There's more. A LOT more.

Sometime in late 2001, Officer Ron Jones collected a tip from an anonymous informant that Jamie Smith, who lived opposite Maye in a duplex, was selling drugs out of his home. Jones passed the tip to the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force, a regional police agency in charge of carrying out drug raids in four surrounding counties. The task force asked Jones if he'd like to come along on the raid they'd be conducting as the result of his tip. He obliged.

On the night of December 26, the task force donned paramilitary gear, and conducted a drug raid on Smith's house. Unfortunately, they hadn't done their homework. The team didn't realize that the house was a duplex, and that Maye -- who had no relationship with Smith,-- rented out the other side with his girlfirend and 1-year-old daughter.

As the raid on Smith commenced, some officers - including Jones -- went around to what they thought was a side door to Smith's residence, looking for a larger stash of drugs. The door was actually a door to Maye's home. Maye was home alone with his young daughter, and asleep, when one member of the SWAT team broke down the outside door. Jones, who wasn't armed, charged in, and made his way to Maye's bedroom. Because police believed Maye's side of the duplex was still part of Smith's residence, they never announced themselves

The article, in an update, notes that the police claimed at trial that they did, in fact, announce themselves in this "no-knock" raid, but that was contested. Long story short, when Jones came crashing into Maye's bedroom in black, paramilitary gear, Maye woke up, grabbed a gun, and shot Jones in the abdomen, below his bullet-proof vest. Jones died on the way to the hospital.

It's a tragic story to be sure, but Jones and the other officers were in the wrong residence. They busted into a place for which they had no warrant without knocking in the middle of the night. Maye had no record aside from some traffic violations and was not a suspect. In a case like this, while everyone mourns such a sad turn of events, Maye would be let go, right? Not so fast, Skippey.

It apparently wasn't so clear to Mississippi's criminal justice system. In January of last year, Maye was convicted of capital murder for the shooting of Officer Jones. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

The story gets even more weird after that, but I'll leave it to you to check out the Agitator's account for those details. The entry does not, however, provide any links to current MSM sources that I could find. It seems to be valid, though. I did a quick check and found this article from their local paper dated 2001, just after the shooting.

To read the local coverage, you'd think you were hearing about an entirely different case. Jones is lauded as a hero, (and I'm sure he was, and thought he was doing his job) but Maye is made out to be something else entirely. While the fact that they lived in a duplex is mentioned, the article does not once state that Maye lived in the other (wrong) half of it from the original suspects in the drug raid. It also fails to mention that his sleeping daughter was in the house with him. In fact, it fails to mention a whole bunch of things while simply pointing out (including a picture) that Maye is black and that he shot the white cop. The article does go on to point out that no drugs were found in the residence and the other people were eventually released without charges.

This story is a travesty. You can only imagine from the news coverage what sort of trial this guy got down there in Mississippi.

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