Patterico launches a two-pronged attack on me for (1) he says misstating the facts in the Wheeler case in an old post about Cory Maye, and (2) for not disclosing in my recent Wall Street Journal article that Dr. Hayne testified in Cory Maye’s case, which Patterico says is the “main reason” I wrote the article.

As for point one, he’s sort of right. The officer in the Wheeler case wasn’t uniformed, as I originally wrote, but was wearing a badge and a holstered gun in civilian clothes, and was shot while standing in the doorway while the defendant was fighting with other police officers, who were uniformed.

Like prior Patterico criticisms of my work, though, this one is rather lame, focusing on a minor detail which is of negligible importance to the broader point. The Wheeler case was precedent for Cory Maye’s case because in Wheeler, the Mississippi Supreme court threw out a capital murder conviction against a defendant that it conceded shot a badge-wearing, holstered officer standing in the doorway, in the middle of the day, while fighting with other uniformed officers. The defendant in Wheeler had plenty of reasons to think the woman in the doorway was a police officer.

In Cory’s case, the officers came into Cory’s home at night, the officer in question was wearing dark clothing, and Cory had plenty of reason to doubt they were actually police. Yet Cory was still convicted of capital murder.

That the deputy shot in Wheeler was wearing only a badge and gun instead of a full police uniform does little to detract from the larger point.

Patterico is, as usual, making a huge deal about a minor detail, blowing it up in attempt to discredit me because he happens to disagree with me on the wider issue of police raids.

As for the disclosure stuff, this is a particularly lame criticism, even for Patterico. First, he has no idea what my motivation was for writing my article on Hayne, so for him to say Cory Maye “is the reason” I wrote the Hayne article is complete speculation on his part and, frankly, utter bullshit. I wrote 5,000 words on Dr. Hayne for the November issue of reason. There are questions about Hayne’s credibility in that article from reputable medical examiners all over the country, as well as from his peers, his colleagues, police officials, and reviews I conducted of his testimony in sworn depositions.

Yes, I did find the Hayne story while researching Cory Maye’s case. Yes, I do think Cory is innocent. That doesn’t mean I wrote the story on Hayne because I want to free Cory Maye. I wrote the story on Hayne because the more I learned about Hayne, and the more I spoke with people about him, the more I realized he’s corrupting Mississippi’s criminal justice system. His testimony in Cory’s case (which I do plan to write about in a separate article) was prejudicial, and I think did some significant harm to Cory’s defense. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as his testimony has been in other cases. And Cory is no longer on death row, making Hayne’s bad testimony in his case less urgent than it is in others. Therefore, Hayne’s testimony in Cory’s case didn’t make the reason article. And so it didn’t make the Wall Street Journal piece, either.

Think about it this way, and Patterico’s accusation is even weirder: If wanting to free Cory Maye is the “main reason” why I wrote an expose on Dr. Hayne in the Wall Street Journal, why would I have neglected to mention anything about Cory Maye in said article? If my main motivation for writing the Dr. Hayne article was getting publicity for Cory Maye, wouldn’t it be sort of stupid for me to go to the trouble of writing a 5,000 word article in reason on Dr. Hayne, then use that article as a pitch to get a nice WSJ op-ed placement, then neglect to mention Cory’s name or case in either of those articles? Wouldn’t it sorta’ be a monumental waste of effort to go to all that trouble to get a WSJ platform, then not mention Cory’s name once in the entire article?

Patterico I guess can see my thoughts. He knows I have a grand scheme here. I suppose I should give him a call, though, because I’m not sure what the next step, is.

Here’s the far less sinister explanation: Researching and reporting Cory’s case led me to several other stories about inadequacies in Mississippi’s criminal justice system. I just recently wrote one about another forensics fraud down there, Dr. Michael West. I learned about Dr. West via my research on Dr. Hayne via my research on Cory Maye’s case. But Dr. West didn’t testify in Cory’s case. In fact, he had nothing to do with it. So I wonder–and maybe Patterico can answer–was Cory Maye the “main reason” I wrote about Dr. West, too?

Learning about a story through another story is one way journalists generate ideas. This new obligation Patterico has concocted–a duty to disclose in a story that you learned about that story through some prior story that may have “helped your career”–seems rather silly, if you ask me.

And about that–this notion that Patterico says I should have disclosed all of this in the Wall Street Journal article, because Patterico says Cory’s case “helped my career.” I haven’t made a dime off of Cory’s case other than the fee reason paid me to write the story last October. I suppose you could argue it’s one reason why the magazine offered me a job. But it’s one of several pieces I wrote for them prior to working for them full time. Does this mean that if I ever again write about Paypal or Morgan Spurlock or cops shooting dogs–all pieces I wrote for reason prior to taking a job with them–I should disclose that my prior articles on those topics “helped my career,” too? I’ve written articles on Internet gambling that led me to testifying before Congress. Does that mean any time I write about Internet gambling in the future, I should have to include something like: “Disclosure: Radley Balko has written about Internet gambling in the past, and it helped his career.”

Do I hope my expose of Dr. Hayne gets Cory’s case reviewed? Absolutely. But I also hope it gets about a thousand other cases reviewed, most notably the Jeffrey Havard and Devin Bennett cases, two occasions where Hayne’s testimony has put a man on death row. But getting Cory out of jail wasn’t the “main reason” I wrote that article, or I damned sure would have mentioned Cory’s case in it. I wrote the article because it’s a terrific story about persistent, longstanding corruption in Mississippi that may be sending innocent people to prison. I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I learned of Dr. Hayne through my research and reporting on Cory’s case. I didn’t disclose it in either article about Dr. Hayne because it wasn’t relevant.

Patterico’s clear implication here is that my failure to disclose this bit of information somehow calls the rest of the article into question. Instead of addressing the substance of the piece–the possibility that some of his fellow prosecutors are putting bad experts on the stand, and possibly sending innocent people to prison–Patterico chooses instead to take a weak swipe at the credibility of the person who wrote the article. Patterico reads that a medical examiner in Mississippi does 1,500 autopsies a year, may be putting innocent people in prison, and has been roundly criticized as incompetent by many of his peers. And is only reaction is, “Radley Balko should have disclosed that this entire article was really about Cory Maye.”

Here’s some advice, Patterico: This persistent and continuing effort on your part to discredit me is making you look foolish and obsessive. I’m sorry if the work I do offends you as a prosecutor. But these lame attacks on my credibility are really only undermining your own.

I’m not going to go back and forth with you on this. You really have no idea what chain of events led to me writing these two articles. You’ve impugned my motivation, though you’ve never met me (and this isn’t the first time you’ve done so). And once again, you were flat wrong. Sorta’ like the way you had to eat your words after you attacked 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston’s character without really knowing anything about her. You were wrong then, too, weren’t you?

I know blog wars come off looking childish. But I’m not the one doing the attacking here. I’ve never attacked this guy. I don’t read him. He keeps throwing this crap my way. And I sorta’ feel like I have to respond, even when said attacks are particularly petty and stupid.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 12:48 am by admin and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.