If you’ll remember back, one very important way the prosecution called Cory Maye’s credibility into question was to cast doubt that events the night of the raid transpired the way Maye said they did. Primarily, they did this through the witness Dr. Steven Hayne, the man who did the autopsy on Officer Ron Jones.

Hayne said that the bullet in Jones’ abdomen was traveling in a downward trajectory, implying that the gun that fired that bullet would had to have been fairly high off the ground. Since Maye says he was lying on the floor when the door flew open and Jones came into the bedroom, the prosecution zeroed in on the bullet’s trajectory through Jones’ body, and implied to the jury that Maye wasn’t cowering in fear on the floor, but laying in wait, standing up behind the bed (they didn’t quite have an explanation as to why a guy laying in wait would kill just one cop, then surrender).

I’ve already looked at a couple of facts that call that theory into question, including the fact that the bullethole in Jones’ body was a “reentry” would, meaning it likely hit something else before entering his body, which may have altered its trajectory (the prosecuton says it was a can of Skoal in Jone’s pocket). But there’s a more significant flaw in the prosecution’s version of events, as you’ll see from the photos below I took at the crime scene while in Mississippi last month.

As it turns out, the door frame is still in the same condition it was the night of the raid. And if you look carefully, you can see that there’s still a bullethole from the gun Maye fired that night. The bullethole is between the door handle and the female piece for a security chain, putting it at about gut-to-breast level for a man of normal height.

The close-up of the bullethole very clearly shows that it was traveling up when hit the door frame, not down.

Now think about this. Jones had to run up three steep stairs to get to the entrance to the bedroom. Isn’t it possible, even probable, that he was crouched, or low to the ground when he entered and Maye fired?

Put another way, we have a hole in the door frame at gut-level that’s clearly headed up. And we have a hole in a man at gut level that’s clearly headed down. The two bullets were fired within a fraction of a second. One of those two targets had to be in a position other than upright when Cory Maye fired his gun. Ask yourself, which of the two was more likely to have been crouched the night of the raid, Officer Jones, or the door frame?

If you’re wondering why Maye’s lawyer Rhonda Cooper didn’t bring this up at trial — well, so am I.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 7:26 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Cory Maye. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.