Another reader writes:

As a retired SWAT Commander, I have several questions about the shooting. In no way am I convinced that Maye belongs in prison, much less on death row. The PDF docs are lame. Surely there is more than what is posted to have a judge sign a search warrant.

If the officer had lived, he would have been asked if he kept a surveillance log on the duplex. This should have included times, vehicle descriptions, and tag numbers.

As a supervisor I would have never have approved even asking a judge for a warrant, and I don’t know of a judge that would have signed one given this lack of information. Most departments require informants to be registered, which means the informant should have been known. Even if the department didn’t require registration, other officers usually know at the least the info given, if not who the actual snitch was.

[...]

I cannot believe Maye was convicted with the piss poor information I have seen.

I would be willing to speak to you and the defense attorney to see if I could assist Mr. Maye in his case. I do ask that my name not be used and to keep my information private.

I’m willing to grant that things are perhaps done differently in small towns than they are in more urban areas. Still, the lack of any documentation whatsoever from Officer Jones with respect to the investigation leading up to the warrants is troubling, to say the least. You’d think he’d have made some record of his investigation. And you’d think the judge would have asked to see some of that documentation before signing off. And given that one of the keys to understanding Maye’s state of mind that night is knowing whether or not police actually had cause to be at his apartment, the lack of documentation also becomes pretty convenient.

I’ll have more on this when we start looking at the trial transcripts. According to Kinko’s, they’ll be done on Wednesday. Which means I may not have them up until Thursday or Friday.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 8:18 pm 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.