Over at Hit & Run, I’ve posted on new developments in both the Cory Maye case and in the ongoing Steven Hayne saga. Hold on to your hats, here, but both developments are actually positive.

One thing about my job: It tends to help you keep some perspective about your own problems.

It was eight years ago today that police in Prentiss, Mississippi broke into Cory Maye’s home on a drug warrant, putting him in the unimaginable position of having to determine if the armed men who had just kicked open his door were police or criminal intruders there to harm him and his young daughter. He’s been in prison ever since, separated from his kids and the rest of his family. He has spent about half that time on Death Row. It was also eight years ago that the family of Ron Jones needlessly lost a son and brother. Mississippi authorities put an innocent man in prison for life, let the actual target of the drug raid that night go free, and shattered two families.

Anyone think it’s the least bit more difficult to get high in Prentiss today than it was then?

There’s a flicker of light in this story, now. Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to post a photo or two of Cory and his kids enjoying their first Christmas together in nearly a decade.

My crime column this week looks at last week’s Mississippi Court of Appeals ruling to rant Cory Maye a new trial. Specifically, it looks at why the issue of venue is important where Maye’s guilt or innocence rests on his credibility and the credibility of the police officers who conducted the raid on his home. The ruling essentially upheld the right to be judged by a jury of your peers.

I’m quoted in this Jackson Clarion-Ledger article about yesterday’s Mississippi Court of Appeals decision in the Cory Maye case.

If you missed the live stream, you can now watch archived video of the oral arguments for Cory Maye’s hearing before the Mississippi Court of Appeals last month.

Check it out here.

As I noted earlier, Cory Maye’s hearing before the Mississippi Court of Appeals took place earlier this afternoon.

I’m obviously biased, but I thought Maye attorneys Abe Pafford and Ben Vernia were outstanding. I don’t have a transcript in front of me, and the video isn’t archived yet, so I’m not going to do a point-by-point rundown, though you can get a pretty good idea of what transpired by reading the briefs.

The state’s attorney looked harried and unprepared, with one of the judges even jumping in at one point to mention case law favorable to her argument. The judges seemed particularly skeptical of the state’s response to Maye’s argument that he should have been permitted to move the trial back to Jefferson Davis County, where the raid took place, instead of in Lamar County, where the trial was eventually held.

Best I could tell, one judge seemed particularly favorable to Maye’s case, and one seemed particularly hostile. The third judge was harder to read. I couldn’t really see his body language through the web stream.

I guess we’ll find out in the next few months.

Tomorrow at 2:30pm ET, the Mississippi Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the Cory Maye case. You’ll be able to stream the arguments live from the court’s website.

To catch you up:

– PDF of Maye’s appeal.

– My 2006 Reason article on Maye’s story.

– Archive of TheAgitator.com posts about Maye.

– Reason.tv documentary on Maye’s case:

According to Maye’s lawyers, this is good news, but only in the sense that it would have been really bad news if the court had declined to hear oral arguments. The arguments are scheduled for June 4. You’ll be able to watch a live webcast here.

My October 2006 Reason feature on Maye’s case here. And here’s Reason’s award-winning documentary on Maye’s story:

The Reason.tv video Mississippi Drug War Blues: The Case of Cory Maye took top prize in the Best Documentary Short category at the Oxford Film Fest. Congratulations to Paul Feine, Roger Richards, and Dan Hayes for their hard work. And of course, props to Drew Carey for making the video possible. You can watch it below.

A comparison of what happens to frightened citizens who shoot at threats they can’t see during a drug raid vs. what happens to frightened police officers who shoot at threats they can’t see during a drug raid.

You could substitute Ryan Frederick or Derrick Foster (among others) for Cory Maye. And you could substitute Dep. Christopher Long and a whole host of others for Chavalia.

Police who make mistakes during drug raids get suspended with pay, and ultimately vindicated. Citizens who make mistakes during drug raids go to jail.

Here’s the interview I did for reason.tv hashing out some of the broader issues of the case.

So this is the project I teased yesterday–and the reason I was in Mississippi last December.

It’s the latest Drew Carey video, and it’s on Cory Maye. I think it’s really well-done. Warm congratulations to Paul Feine, Roger Richards, and the gang at reason.tv for putting it all together. I know it was a lot of work. It’s the longest Carey video to date, and the one in which the reason.tv staff has invested the most time producing. I think it paid off. It gets quite emotional in places. The scenes with Cory’s mother, and where Melissa Longino reads from Cory’s Thanksgiving card to his daughter still choke me up. It’s beautifully shot, too. I’d recommend watching in full-screen mode.

There’s also a video interview with your humble Agitator about the issues involved in Cory’s story.

Finally, if you want more information on the case, the reason.tv site has a rundown of related articles and links. Or, if you’re really motivated, here’s my archive of posts on Cory’s case.

People frequently ask me how they can help Cory out. Here’s an easy way: Spread this video far and wide. Vote it up on sites like Digg and Reddit (though I’d recommend voting up the reason.tv link, not this one). Email it to people who might be interested in the case. Embed it on your own blog. I think this is the most compelling presentation of Cory’s story yet. It can only help if lots of people see it.

UPDATE: Here’s the Digg entry. Here’s the entry for Reddit.

Several people have written to ask what they can do to help Cory Maye and/or his family. There are a few things.

First, I know that Cory’s fund is empty, and that he was hoping to be able to buy his children some Christmas presents. Keep in mind, this is not a legal defense fund. Covington and Burling is covering all of his legal expenses. This is a fund that enables Cory to pay for his family to come visit him, buy things from the prison canteen, and buy gifts for his kids. You can send a check to:

Cory Maye Justice Fund
c/o R.E. Evans
P.O. Box 636
Monticello, MS 39654

Or you can PayPal to: corymayejusticefund@gmail.com

The money is managed by Bob Evans, Cory’s chief counsel. Bob will send you a receipt and a thank-you note. And all withdrawals from the fund are approved by Cory.

The other thing you can do is write to Cory. I know a few Agitator readers have become regular pen pals with him. You can also send him magazines and paperback books. Parchman’s mail policy here.

Here’s the address:

Cory J. Maye #100961
Unit 32 — E Building
Parchman Penitentiary
Parchman, MS 38738

MORE: You could also help by giving this post some Reddit love.

I spent most of last week in Mississippi, working on a very cool new project related to the Cory Maye case. Details on the project itself forthcoming. I’ll also post some updates on Cory’s legal situation later in the week. For now, though, some rambling thoughts (and photos) from my trip:

This was my fifth trip to Mississippi, and backward as the state’s politics and criminal justice system may be, the place is growing on me. There’s a rustic, pastoral kind of beauty to Mississippi. I’ve made the drive from Prentiss to Jackson about a dozen times now, usually at dusk as I’m headed back to the hotel, and it’s a really pretty ride. Rolling, fence-lined pastures, still green in December, turn to hilly roads tunneled by tall, skinny pines shooting up from their shoulders; lots of lazy, grazing cattle, still gnawing on cud as the sun slips behind the hills; and loads of charming, deep-south imagery—the odd roadside barbecue joint; a massive catfish restaurant with an always-bustling parking lot; a crazy fundamentalist’s property with Bible verses and admonitions against smoking, drinking, and molesting babies tacked to the trees; and your occasional scraggly dog tethered to a tree or beat-up dog house, watching the lumber-hauling tractor trailers blow down the highway. And of course, the people are incredibly warm. I think every third word uttered down here is “sugar,” “hon,” or “baby.” As in, “More coffee for you, baby?” Or, “some pie, sugar?”

On Wednesday we visited Melissa Longino, grandmother of Ta’Corrianna, Cory Maye’s little girl. In a better world, she’d have been Cory’s mother-in-law. Melissa offered moving testimony at the September 2006 hearing. She recounted a deep affection for Cory, and detailed the way Cory doted on his daughter in their short 18 months together. She also talked about how he’s struggled to remain a part of his kids’ lives from prison. As she said at the hearing, Longino told us this week that Cory has never missed an important day when it comes to staying in touch with his kids. He calls both his children every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every birthday. His cards, she said, come three or four days early, just to be sure Mo (T’a'Corianna’s nickname) gets them in time. Each time Ta’Corianna visits her grandmother, Longino said, the first thing she does is tear through the house to look for the cards and letters her daddy sent her. “Did he write me?” she asks. And yes, Longino says, every time, there’s at least one (usually several) letter from Cory waiting for her. She is and always has been, Longino says, a “Daddy’s girl.”

On Thursday we talked to Dorothy Maye Funchess, Cory’s mother, and she relayed much of the same sentiment. Cory, she says, is better at remembering birthdays than she she is—not just his kids’, but those of everyone in the family. He tells her exactly what gifts to get the kids, and often knows before she does what they want for a birthday, or for Christmas. He calls in the fall to make sure they’re well-outfitted for school, and if Funchess is busy with work or occupied by her other grandkids, Cory enlists his sister to make sure his kids always get what they need. In fact, Funchess says, the first thing Cory said to her after he was sentenced to death was, “I love you mama. Please take good care of my kids.”

Unfortunately (but understandably), Chanteal Longino’s been seeing someone new for a couple of years, and is trying to move on with her life. She now lives in Covington, Louisiana. But her efforts to distance herself from what happened on December 26, 2001, though understandable, mean necessarily distancing Ta’Corrianna from that night as well. And it’s impossible to distance the little girl from the raid and its fallout without also taking her away from Cory. So Cory’s finding it more and more difficult to remain a part of his daughter’s life, despite his best efforts, and despite that he’s a better father from prison than many kids get in their own homes. Dorothy says Cory’s heartbroken over the increasing distance between he and Ta’Corrianna. As is she.

I don’t doubt that there are lots of convicted felons who struggle to stay parents to their kids from prison. But in Cory’s case, it’s particularly brutal. He’s in prison not because he was a poor father, or because he engaged in a life of crime that hurt or put his kids at risk. On the contrary. By all accounts he was loving, attentive father. He had no criminal record. Talk to Cory’s relatives, and they’ll tell you that their memories of him have him dressing his kids, bathing them, changing them, holding them, and brushing and braiding their hair. He cooked for them, and played with them. When construction jobs dried up and he couldn’t work, he became his daughter’s primary caretaker while, Chanteal worked nights at the chicken plant. He’s in prison precisely because he acted out of fear for his daughter’s safety. He thought someone was breaking into his home to harm the two of them. That that act has now put him in a position where he’s being slowly erased from his daughter’s life—from a jail cell where there’s little he can do about it—is a crushingly cruel twist of fate.

To believe Cory was guilty of capital murder, you have to believe that he knowingly and intentionally killed Ron Jones, and that he did so with the knowledge that Jones was a police officer. You have to believe that this man, who had no criminal record, and who’s “crime” was no more than a burnt roach in his apartment, knowingly decided to take on a team of raiding police officers; laid in wait for them to kick open his bedroom door; deliberately chose to engage in gunfire in the room where his daughter was laying; decided to fire just three rounds; shot and killed a police officer; then surrendered with bullets still left in his gun. Almost nothing about that makes sense. It doesn’t make sense even if you don’t know Cory. And it certainly doesn’t make sense if you talk to anyone who knows him.

This isn’t a dangerous, unrepentant cop killer who needs to be separated from society. The far more plausible explanation is that this is a guy who had just moved away from home; who was wary of his neighbor (who actually was involved in the drug trade, and by all appearances was the reason for the raid); who was scared; and who did what he thought he had to do to protect himself and his daughter.

Below, some photos, culled from my several trips to Mississippi. Post resumes after.

When we visited yesterday, Dorothy had just spoken with Cory on the phone. When she told him we were coming, Cory asked her to make sure we were well fed with southern cooking. So she fixed us up a feast of Cory’s favorites: barbecue chicken, smothered cabbage, cornbread, shrimp stir-fry, and rice with gravy. I was full for a day-and-a-half.Dorothy then gave us a tour of her home, the house where Cory grew up. It’s a single-story, humble but well-kept ranch house. There’s a light woods to the back, and a bright green cattle pasture across the street to the front. The property is surrounded by long fences, sad old barns and abandoned properties, and winding gravel roads. The backyard is home to two ponies and three dogs, including one scraggly, war-torn mutt that had just given birth to a litter of six fluffy black puppies. The house has two bedrooms, a living room, and a bright, red and green kitchen. An aging, cast-iron wood-burner warms the place during Mississippi’s short and mild winters.

Dorothy then showed me the woods behind the house where Cory shot at rabbits and raccoons while growing up; the stove and grill where he learned to cook; and the pictures of Cory growing up that she keeps on the wall. Dorothy had initially kept Cory’s childhood room intact, “hoping against hope,” she says, that he’d be home from prison in short time to sleep in his bed again. But she eventually had to pack up Cory’s things and put them away. When Cory Jr. would visit, he’d immediately go back to his daddy’s old room, see Cory’s bed and his belongings, and start to cry. Dorothy keeps some shoes and old clothes in the room now. She says she didn’t want to move Cory’s things, but she also didn’t want her grandson associating visits to her home with tears, sadness, and missing his daddy.I received a letter from Cory last week. He’s trying to settle in to his new surroundings. He’s now at Unit 32 at Parchman Penitentiary, the hardest-knock wing of one of the hardest-knock prisons in the country. It’s the highest-security wing in the prison, save for Death Row. When it comes to living conditions, it’s likely worse. Lately, Unit 32 has had problems with rioting. There have been three inmate murders in the last two years. In a 2005 complaint, the ACLU described Unit 32 like this:

…profound isolation and unrelieved idleness; pervasive filth and stench; malfunctioning plumbing and constant exposure to human excrement … grossly inadequate medical, mental health and dental care; the routine use by security staff of excessive force; and the constant pandemonium, night and day, of severely mentally ill prisoners screaming, raving and hallucinating in nearby cells.”

This is Cory’s home, now.

Even after his death sentence was tossed in the fall of 2006, Cory requested to remain on Death Row. He was isolated there. He could stay in his cell and read and watch TV. When I asked him about Death Row in September 2006, he actually said he had no complaints (though Bob Evans, Cory’s chief counsel, says he rarely complains about much of anything). He didn’t need to fear for his safety there—about getting beaten or raped. Cory’s a shy, gentle guy. It’s hard to see him thriving in the general population of a high-security prison unit. So he remained on Death Row until last month, when he received his new sentence, life without parole. He’ll now need to learn to live in the general population, with Mississippi’s worst of the worst.

Cory’s still isolated for now, which he says is common for newcomers to gen-pop at Parchman. He just enrolled in a GED program. And he’s hoping to land a job in the prison kitchen, so he’ll be able to cook again. In spite of the circumstances, the letter seemed upbeat. Dorothy said he told her he’s disappointed that the guards won’t let him wash his own clothes, as he’d grown accustomed to doing on Death Row. In Unit 32, he says, his clothes come back from the laundry dirtier than they were when he sent them away.

I’m back in Virginia now, from what was a pretty emotionally draining trip. I’ve other stories to work on until the next hearing or development in Cory’s case. For Cory, Dorothy, Melissa, T’corrianna, Little Cory and everyone else affected by Cory’s incarceration, there’s no plane to board that’ll drop them into another life. They wake, eat, breathe, and, when they can, sleep (when they can) with this stuff—with the continuing fallout from that raid six years ago.

The family of Ron Jones won’t ever get away from it, either. I’m sure that as the anniversary of the raid approaches, as the holidays near, the Jones family’s pain will again grow starker and harsher and harder to handle. We also visited the memorial to Jones in front of the Prentiss city hall while we were in Mississippi last week. The afternoon was sunny, but brisk and windy. Jones’ polished, stone slab memorial rises from the sidewalk like a headstone, framed by the entrance to the building that houses the mayor’s office and the police and fire departments. Strongly as I’ve advocated for Cory’s innocence, there is of course no mistaking the tragedy of Jones’ death, too. That, incidentally, is always something Cory always emphasizes and expresses his sorrow for in his letters. Still today, he refers to Jones as “Mister Ron,” a term of respect and affection. I sat near Jones’ parents both days of the 2006 hearing in Poplarville. Their pain was obvious. I’m sure this has all been agonizing for them, as will the coming years, particularly if things go as I and Cory’s supporters hope they will. There were two tragedies, here. That’s unfortunate. What’s even more unfortunate is that one of them can be undone, at least partially, but not without making things worse for the people still hurting from the other one.

Much of my trip centered around the people affected by Cory’s incarceration. But there was a moment of pronounced solemnity while standing front of Jones’ memorial. Downtown Prentiss isn’t a terribly busy place. All was quiet while we stood there—only wind lapping at the U.S. and Mississippi flags ten feet or so above the memorial. My thoughts drifted to a particular part of the hearing last fall when Jones’ death was recounted in testimony. I saw Jones’ mother’s head fall, her eyes close tight, and her thumb and forefinger pinch at the bridge of her nose.

If there’s something particularly cruel about Cory’s act in defense of his daughter that night leading to him now being increasingly separated from her, there’s also unfortunate irony in Jones’ death. My reporting indicates that Jones was a one of the few police officers trusted and respected by nearly everyone in Prentiss, black and white. Over and over, blacks in Jefferson Davis County have told me of Jones, “He was a friend,” or, “He was one of the good ones.” I should add, here, that I think Jones took some shortcuts that night. And those shortcuts are in part to blame for what happened. But after talking to lots of people in Prentiss and Jeff Davis County, I’m also convinced Jones was a good guy doing what he thought was good police work. There was nothing malevolent about him. In an area of the country where black people are particularly wary of white cops, Jones was respected—nearly beloved. Bob Evans says that knowing what he knows of Jones, had it been any other officer killed that night, he believes Jones would have been an advocate for Cory Maye.

One of the people I spoke to during my visit two years ago is Linda Shoemaker, who runs the Prentiss tobacco shop. Shoemaker’s a white woman, middle-aged, and was described by many to me as the town’s unofficial historian. She knows everything that happens—judging from my time there, likely because nearly everyone in town stops by her shop to buy tobacco. Shoemaker knew Ron Jones well, for most of his life, and was quite fond of him. But she’s also one of the few white people in the area who doesn’t believe Cory ought to be in prison. I still have a quote from her in my notes from two years ago. “If somebody every broke in on me and my grandbabies…” She then paused. Her eyes filled with tears and she glanced upward. “Forgive me for saying this, Ron,” she said. “You know I love you. But if anybody broke in on me and my grandbabies at night, I’d have done the same thing Cory Maye did.”

You have one man taken from his family, in the prime of his life. You have another man, also taken from his family, now losing the prime of his life. You have a son taken from his mother and father. And you have a loving father being taken from his son and daughter.

Thank this war. The goddamned drug war. It is so incredibly senseless and stupid. And it’ll continue to claim and ruin lives, because too few politicians have the backbone to stand up and say after 30 years, $500 billion, a horrifyingly high prison population, and countless dead innocents, cops, kids, nonviolent offenders, decimated neighborhoods, wasted lives, corrupted cops, and eviscerations of the core freedoms this country was allegedly founded upon, the shit isn’t working. It’ll never work. It never has. It’s a testament to the facade of truth that is politics that no leaders from the two majors parties have in thirty years been able to say this. That maybe, just maybe, we’re doing it wrong. Maybe, just maybe, kicking down doors in the middle of the night and storming in with guns in order to stop people from getting high….isn’t such a good idea. Maybe, just maybe, the idea getting tips from racist, illiterate, drug-addicted informants about which doors, if you kick them down, will lead to drugs? Well maybe that isn’t such a sound policy, either. We can’t even get one of the leading candidates for president to say that. The safe position is always to advocate for more money, more government power, more militarism—and less freedom, less common sense, and less worry about collateral damage. Sensibility, honesty, or compassion? Too risky.

Incidentally, the whole no-knock, door-kicking, middle-of-the-night-storming stuff wasn’t the result of trial-and-error police tactics. It wasn’t suggested to policymakers by academic criminologists with years of experience studying best practice police tactics, either. It wasn’t even something police were particularly interested in at the time. If you read the book Smoke and Mirrors, journalist Dan Baum’s terrific history of the drug war, the sad fact of the matter is, the “no-knock raid” was a concept dreamed up in the late 1960s by political strategists working for the Nixon campaign.

That’s right. This map comes courtesy of a bunch of political hacks who knew very little about actual police procedures or criminal justice. But they did know a little something about winning elections. The no-knock raid was one of several get-tough-on-crime policies they thought would win over white suburban voters. They wanted to implement it in Washington D.C., the one urban area over which Congress had the power to directly implement criminal justice policy. What tougher crime policy could there be than to let narcotics cops bust down the doors of suspected drug users and distributors? These were voters who’d mostly only seen D.C. on TV, but they were voters Nixonians (correctly) anticipated were fed up with seeing evening news reports of black people rioting in the streets, and hippies smoking dope on the National Mall.

The plan worked. Nixon won, and his crime platform and appeal to the “silent majority” had a lot to do with it. By 1972, he’d initiated the modern “war on drugs.” Wars of course mean combat. And so door-busting narcotics raids took off 1970s, then exploded in the 1980s with the rise of SWAT teams.

I’m not a huge fan of conservative political theorist Richard Weaver. But he was certainly right about one thing: Ideas have consequences. The door-bashing drug raid—an untested, unstudied, get-tough-on-crime political tactic dreamed up not by guys in badges but by party animals in tailored suits—has had some very real consequences. One of those consequences can be seen in the memorial outside the Prentiss, Mississippi city hall, which marks the too-early death of good cop. T’a'Corianna Longino and Cory Maye, Jr. are also consequences of that idea dreamed up three decades before they were born. Just two more black kids who, if the state of Mississippi has its way, will spend the rest of their lives without a father. In this case, that’s despite the fact that they have a father who loves them, and desperately wants to be a part of their lives.

I’ll leave you with the message from the Thanksgiving card Cory sent to Ta’Corianna this year. A bit of context: Cory had hoped to see his daughter last month, when he was allowed out of Parchman for his re-sentencing hearing. Unfortunately, Ta’Corianna’s aunt got lost on the way to the courthouse. The hearing was over and Cory had been moved back to Parchman by the time they figured out where they were, and how to get to the courthouse. Cory writes:

Ta’Corianna,

Hi baby! I know we didn’t get a chance to see each other while I was down for court. Hope you’re doing well, cause I think of you each day. You’re always within my heart & prayers. You & I have a lot of thinks to talk about & time to make up for.

We’ll be together soon if it’s the Lord’s Will. He’s been protecting us & making sure we stay strong for one another. So I’m sure he’ll send me home to you one day. Just try not to worry.

I know it’s been hard at times, but just try to do what I do. I look at your pictures & think happy thoughts, where all of this will be behind us. We’ll be fishing at the lake. Yeah, daddy’s going to take his little girl fishing at the lake. We’ll have a picnic, and we’ll talk until the sun goes down. Maybe we’ll have some ice cream, too. If we can keep it from melting.

Take care and stay sweet. I love you more than life and words can say. Happy Thanksgiving!

Love always,

Cory J. Maye.
Daddy.

Cory was resentenced yesterday to life without parole, the only option for someone convicted of capital murder if the state decides against seeking the death penalty. Now that that’s official, he’ll formally start his appeal. I know his lawyers had planned to introduce some of my reporting and their own research on Dr. Hayne into the record before the sentencing, but I haven’t yet heard how that went. More a bit later.

Bob Evans is making a go at public office. It’s my pleasure to help him get word out to blogland about his decision. Bob, you’ll remember, is Cory Maye’s chief counsel. He’s also a defense attorney in private practice. You may also remember that Bob stuck by Cory even after being threatened by the mayor of Prentiss that he’d lose his gig as public defender if he continued to represent Maye in his appeal. Bob continued to represent Cory, and ended up losing his job (I’m still fairly certain all of this was illegal).

Bob’s no libertarian (he’ll be the first to tell you that), but I think readers of this site would do well to help him out if they can. For one, he tells me criminal justice reform will be one of his pet causes in Jackson. And Bob’s seen a hell of a lot that needs to be reformed. One thing near and dear to Agitator land he said he’ll push for is the codified right to record police officers while they’re on the job. Bob’s other pet issue is actually a tax cut. He wants to eliminate Mississippi’s tax on groceries, a tax that seems particularly odious given that the state is one of the poorest in the country.

Bob tells me the real race here is in the primary, which takes place next month. RThis part of Mississippi rarely sends Republicans to Jackson. So conservative Democrats who vote like Republicans (which, Bob says, is an apt description of the incumbent) fight it out in the primary with more liberal Democrats (which probably describes Bob), and the winner usually has an easy time of it in the general election.

I’d imagine that most people outside the state of Mississippi don’t care much about the state’s tax code, property taxes, or other issues. But most people reading this site do care about criminal justice issues, and Bob has told me that’s an area he’ll spend a lot of time looking into if elected.

If you’re wondering, Mississippi’s is a part-time legislature. So Bob will continue his practice, and continue representing Cory Maye, along with the team from Covington and Burling.

Bob’s also just an all around good guy. I have an interview with him I’ve been meaning to turn into a podcast. If I can find some time, I’ll try to get that done.

Here’s the front and back of Bob’s campaign flier, which includes his contact information.

Here’s an AP wire article on District Attorney Hal Kittrell’s (Buddy McDonald’s replacement) announcement that he will no longer be seeking the death penalty for Cory Maye.

This is good news, now made official. But I hope the lack of a looming death sentence doesn’t mute the sense of urgency many people have felt about this case. Life in prison isn’t much better.

Got a letter from Cory Maye asking if I might put out a public request for pen pals. Gotta’ be tediously boring in prison. Here’s how you can reach him:

Cory J. Maye #100961
Unit 32-C Building
Parchman, MS 38738

Check these guidelines, too.

Here’s the info on the Cory Maye Justice Fund. You can also Paypal to: corymayejusticefund@paypal.com.

At the request of several potential donors, Bob Evans has set up a PayPal account for Cory Maye’s fund.

If you don’t want to send a check, you can PayPal to:

corymayejusticefund@gmail.com