Stephen Gordon has put Cory Maye up on Wikipedia.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been posting on the fly with this story, while trying to correct and clarify along the way. While blogland has been almost universally supportive of Maye, a few blogs and comments on blogs have noted that inaccuracies are being perpetuated. This is in part my fault, and in part due to the fact that the blogosphere sometimes functions like an enormous game of “telephone.” As for the part that’s my fault: My firsts posts on the Maye case were summaries, in which I collected information from media reports (which I’ve noted were sometimes contradictory) and from my conversations with Maye’s first attorney, who hadn’t been on the case in nearly two years. I don’t regret putting up those posts, inaccuracies and all, because they’re what put this case into public discussion. Only after those posts went up, and particularly after some PR help from Glenn Reynolds, for example, did folks in Mississippi start returning my calls.

But I don’t want this to be a case of blogs running amok with foggy details. I think Maye ought to be exonerated on the facts. So before I go on with new information, I’d like to put up a post that aims to keep everyone on the same page.

Let’s start with misconceptions, inaccuracies, and clarifications.

The CBS News blog and the Hotline blog have both picked up the Maye story.

Perhaps we’re close to a breakthrough. I’ve also been commissioned to write an op-ed on the case by what we’ll call for now a national newspaper. That’s about all I can say at the moment — it’s not yet a done deal.

I’ve received lots of email asking about a legal defense fund, pro bono work, etc. for Cory Maye. I posed the question to Maye’s current counsel, public defender Bob Evans. He replied:

Certainly am interested in anything that could be helpful to Cory’s case. Particularly would not be averse to talking with other interested lawyers who not only are willing but are CAPABLE of helping with the appeal and, hopefully, the retrial. Sentiment alone, while appreciated, is not helpful from a legal standpoint.

Defense funding would also be extremely helpful. Cory’s family, while obviously very concerned about him, are not financially able to obtain all the things that would be helpful in litigating his appeal. And while an indigent can, at the pretrial level, request the court’s financial assistance in obtaining things such as expert testimony (re: pathologist to discuss bullet path thru body and reasons that path does not jibe with Cory’s statement) and investigative help (for ex. to establish whether anyone else in the surrounding subdivision heard any of the cops announcing before entering), such assistance is not generally available at the appellate level where we now are. If others want to assist Cory in this manner, that would be fantastic.

Although being a cause celebre didn’t prevent Tookie’s execution this morning in California, he was undeniably guilty. Cory is not.

Let me know your suggestions about establishing a defense fund. Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I know nothing about how to establish a legal defense fund. And as I’ve written before, I don’t really think it’s my place to start one. But I’d be happy to put anyone with knowledge of such things in touch with Evans.

Here’s the latest, according to Bob Evans, Maye’s attorney:

The gun was stolen, not unregistered. Mississippi doesn’t require guns to be registered. The prosecution apparently wanted to push the fact that the gun was stolen in an attempt to discredit Maye (in Evans’ delightfully Southern parlance, “They tried to ride that horse long and hard”). But documents apparently show that the gun was stolen at least a year before Maye was found with it (I’ll have to check the trial transcripts when I get them to see just how long before the raid it was stolen), and that it was stolen in Natchez, Mississippi, about 100 miles away.

In other words, it’s almost certain that Maye’s assertion that he got the gun from a friend was correct. And Mississippi has no law against private transfers of guns. So the only thing illegal about the gun was that it was stolen, and there’s no evidence to suggest that Maye stole it, or knew that it was stolen.

All of this is probably why the trial judge suppressed the gun evidence, never letting it get to the jury.

I just had about an hour-long conversation with Bob Evans. Evans is the Jefferson Davis County public attorney, and he’s represtening Cory Maye on appeal.

The good news is, to my admidetly untrained ear, Evans knows his shit. I think too often families of the accused recoil when they hear the words “public defender,” and immediately move for someone, anyone else. But public defenders have a lot of exeperience in these kinds of cases, and unless you can afford a Johnnie Cochrane, they’re probably your best bet. In this case, Maye’s family fired Evans and hired Rhonda Cooper, a nice woman who seems to have done the best she could, but who had never tried a capital case, and who in my judgment made some devastating mistakes. I’ll get to those later.

I’ll have much, much more on this soon. There’s quite a bit more evidence in Maye’s favor we haven’t discussed yet. But I have a few other things I need to take care of first.

In the meantime, keep up the buzz. Evans said he’ll tell Maye the next time he sees him that there’s some support building for his case.

Just learned that Maye’s being represented by Bob Evans, a public defender. Not sure why an appeal has yet to be filed. Left him a voicemail this morning.

District Attorney Buddy McDonald emailed me yesterday to tell me the gun Maye used to shoot Officer Jones was unregistered, and possibly stolen. So far, I’ve found no mention of the gun in about a dozen local media reports on the case, nor was it mentioned in the evidence sheet of items seized from Maye’s home. The status of the gun was also suppressed at trial, though McDonald says his bringing up the gun and the judge’s suppressing that tesimtony will turn up in the transcript. I should have a copy of the transcript in a few days. Maye apparently told police he got the gun from a friend.

If this is true, I suppose it gives anyone looking for a reason to impeach Maye’s credibility a peg to latch on to. I’m not terribly surprised by it, nor does it make me less outraged by the fact that Maye’s on death row. The fact that a poor man living in a high-crime area borrowed or bought a gun from a friend for protection doesn’t strike me as all that scandalous. When I had my little run-in with cops and gangbangers last winter, several readers offered to lend me a weapon until I could buy one myself. If I’d accepted and, God forbid, had cause to use it in a scenario similar to Maye’s, I’d hope the fact that the gun wasn’t in my name wouldn’t be cause to send me to death row.

Beyond possibly striking a blow against Maye’s credibility, I don’t think this latest revelation does much at all to alter the facts of the case. The question here is whether or not Maye reasonably believed his life was in peril. That he used an unregistered gun to defend himself doesn’t affect that question one way or the other.

My position on this case is pretty clear. I think Maye should be pardoned and released. Probably compensated, too. But in the interest of gettng at the truth, I think it’s important that we put all information out there. Even information that isn’t necessarily productive to Maye’s cause.

UPDATE: Just spoke with Rhonda Cooper, Maye’s former attorney. She says there’s documentation showing that there’s no way Maye could have stolen the gun. It was apparently stolen from another part of the state, and well before it ever came into Maye’s possession. Sounds like a typical black market gun that made it’s way to Maye’s friends, then to Maye himself.

(Note: I’m putting these posts up pretty quickly, while simultaneously writing an op-ed on this case. Please forgive spelling errors, typos, etc. (Of course, if you spot some, do let me know) I’ll go back and correct them as I have time.)

I received one set of search warrants and affidavits this morning at 8:45am. There was one warrant and one affidavit for each apartment at the duplex. They were very spare — boilerplate, really — with no details about Officer Jones’ due dilligence to confirm that Cory Maye was dealing drugs. I then got a second fax at 9:50am, which included a document called “Underlying Facts and Cirucmstances,” in which Officer Jones lays out his reasons for requesting the warrants.

Here are the PDFs:

Warrant on Maye’s residence.
Affidavit on Maye’s residence.
Underlying facts on Maye’s residence.
Post-raid evidence sheet on Maye’s residence.

Warrant on Smith’s residence.
Affidavit on Smith’s residence.
Underlying facts on Smith’s residence.
Post-raid evidence sheet on Smith’s residence.

My observations:

Here’s a pretty straightforward question:

If the narcotics task force that raided Maye’s home really did set out to knock, announce themselves, then give Maye a reasonable time to answer the door, why would they serve the warrant at 11:30 at night?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to serve the warrant at 7 or 8, when Maye would be less likely to be sleeping, and more likely to hear the police announce themselves, come to the door, and answer? Isn’t a late-night raid more likely to inspire fear and apprehension?

Unfortunately, this is a pretty common practice, particularly in jurisdictions where no-knock raids have been outlawed or severely restricted. Police get around it by conducting “knock-and-announce” raids at hours when a normal person would be least likely to hear the announcement.

In 1999, for example, cops in El Monte, California raided the home of 64-year-old Mario Paz. Paz thought he was being invaded, and reached for a gun to defend himself (actually, police first say Paz was holding a gun, then they said he was reaching for a gun, then they said he was reaching for a drawer where a gun was stored). Police shot Paz twice in the back, killing him. They found no drugs in Paz’s home.

I bring up the Paz case because of what El Monte assistant police cheif Bill Ankeny told the L.A. Times after the shooting:

“We do bang on the door and make an announcement–’It’s the police’–but it kind of runs together. If you’re sitting on the couch, it would be difficult to get to the door before they knock it down.”

And if you’re sleeping, you probably wouldn’t hear the announcement at all.

An announcement just as you’re opening the door, or after you’ve already opened, is akin to no announcement at all, particularly if it’s done at odd hours.

(Thanks to Joel Miller, who documents the Paz case in his book Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs Is Destroying America.)

Check out this weird account of Maye’s trial proceedings from a January 23, 2004 article in the Hattiesburg American:

When asked by defense attorney Ronda Cooper if he would have shot at the officers had they announced they were police officers, Maye shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I would have let them in.”

Maye said he shot his Larson .380 caliber handgun to defend his and his daughter’s life.

But on cross examination, District Attorney Buddy McDonald questioned Maye’s concern for his daughter.

“You were so concerned about your daughter, but you left her on the bed?” McDonald asked. “Don’t you think it was a tad dangerous to open fire with your daughter laying right there?”

What a bizarre question. It’s a small apartment. Maye says he felt someone was breaking in to his apartment to do him harm, enough so that he was ready to fire a weapon in self-defense. His daughter was on the bed. What was he supposed to do? Fire while carrying his daughter in his arms? Move her to the front room, where the intruders had already been banging on his door? I find it hard to fathom how leaving his daughter where she was somehow shows that Maye wasn’t really all that concerned about her. And I think any gunowner with children would reject the idea that firing on someone who’s breaking down your door is endangering your kids. I think most gunowners would agree that it’s an act of protecting them.

Via email, McDonald writes about the search warrants:

The warrants are probably in the evidence exhibits to the trial and not in the general file which contains indictments and other pleadings but normally not the evidence that was introduced. They were introduced at the suppression hearing on the search as exhibits 1 and 2, this is on page 7 of the transcript of the trial during the suppression hearing and the originals were identified by Judge Kruger the City Judge at the hearing. If they make you copies of exhibit 1 and 2 to the suppression hearing you will see them. The warrant for one apartment was for an apartment occupied by “Jamie Smith/and or persons unknown” I believe. In the warrant for the apartment Maye was in it is stated, I believe that the apartment was occupied by “person or persons unknown”. If the name of the occupant is known to the informant the warrant is issued like that some times. Many times when informants deal with people they do not get their real or any names at all.

If this is true, then I think we have a real problem. If Maye isn’t specifically named in the warrant, and the specific information Jones used to get a warrant for Maye’s home “died with Jones,” we’ll never know exactly why police broke down Maye’s door that night. If the warrant is for “persons unknown,” and not for Maye, the only two real possibilities are that (a) the warrant included Maye’s residence only because it was adjacent to Smith’s, or (b) Maye was the target of the investigation all along, but the informant didn’t know Maye’s identity, only where he lived.

The latter seems improbable, given that Maye had no prior criminal record, and no drugs were found in his apartment. The problem is, we’ll never know, because apparently, all record of the investigative work Jones did prior to obtaining the warrant “died with him.”

Back to McDonald’s email:

As to why I he would not open, I can not say. The door to the other apartment was only a few feet from his front door. They heard the announcement from the team that went there and those people opened up. A witness testified a light went on in the front room of the apartment that the front door went into. When the shooting occurred may was in a back bedroom. Maye was the only person in the apartment other than the child.

I’m not sure the fact that the light went on is all that relevant. What’s relevant is whether or not police properly announced themselves and, given the time of night the raid was conducted, whether or not Maye should have reasonably assumed them to be police. According to the Hattiesburg American, Maye testified that upon hearing the banging on his front door, he became frightened, and went to the bedroom to get and load his gun. It’s not unreasonable to think that this is when he might have turned on the light. It’s here that police broke down the back door, and Jones stormed Maye’s apartment. Maye’s testimony is that the narcotics task force yelled “police” only after forcing the door open, and he’d already shot Jones. At that point, he dropped his gun and raised his hands.

As to why no drugs were found in Maye’s apartment, and why a man with no criminal record would engage in a shootout with police instead of simply letting them in, McDonald answers:

Time elapsed from the time they announced at the front door and the time they gained entry in the back. Things get flushed some times. We do not know what else he might have to hide, (what he might have done he knew of and the police did not know of]) he may have thought they were there on to something else concerning him. Just to be frank some times people do irrational things.

Well, that last sentence is certainly true, though probably not in the way McDonald intended. What’s troubling here is the level of suspicion McDonald thrusts onto Maye, despite the fact that, at risk of repeating myself, (a) Maye had no crminal record, (b) no drugs were found in Maye’s apartment, (c) there’s every reason to believe that Maye wasn’t even the original target of the warrant.

McDonald goes on:

The flip side of the issue is why would the officers not announce and take a chance on getting shot?

Probably for the same reasons that cops carry out no-knock raids all over the country — about 40,000 per year, by some estimates. No-knocks are usually justified on the flawed premise that it’s safer to barge into someone’s home at 3am with high-powered weaponry than it is to apprehend them as they’re coming or leaving the house. For reasons that escape me, politicians, district attorneys, and police chiefs all over America are sold on the idea. I think they’re pretty obviously mistaken, and the littany of botched raids and dozens of people — cops and civilians — who have fallen victim to them is good evidence that I’m right. But I guess, just to be frank, sometimes people do irrational things.

You can get and read the transcript. It the facts and issues are discussed there.

I only contacted you to let you know where you could get the transcript as you seemed interested in the case. That way you do not have to rely on what I say or on what the defense attorney says you can read it for yourself. It is about 540 pages would not take you too long.

I plan to.

You can check how various other blogs are reacting to the Maye case here.

Battlepanda also has a breakdwon by ideology.

Two reader responses to District Attorney McDonald’s answers to my questions:

If the informant in the Maye case is “anonymous,” and if Jones is the only person who knew the identity of the informant, and if that identity “died with Jones,” and if prosecutors “did not know the name of the informant” (which I highly doubt, because the prosecutors I know ALWAYS knows the names of the informant, and most states have procedural rules that allow–in some cases–the defense attorneys to uncover the name of an anonymous source), then how does the prosecutor know that Maye “knew the informant”?

If no one knows who the informant is, how could they know Maye’s relationship to him? The only explanation I can come up with is that Jones assured the rest of the team that the informant was solid. But can that possibly be the standard? An assurance by the guy conducting the raid that the raid was legitimate, and that he didn’t fuck up?

Besides the warrant itself, there should be a record of the request for the warrant, written by Jones, and to the judge, outlining the case for reasonable suspicion/probable cause (whatever the standard in Mississippi is). You should be able to look at that, too.

Here’s another:

I find it nearly impossible to believe that Jones did not leave any record of the information regarding Cory Maye. In particular, the entry and search teams should have insisted on having whatever information Jones had. How can you plan a high-risk drug raid without having all the information available?

To me, it just doesn’t add up. Either the entry and search teams were incredibly negligent and sloppy in their work, or someone is lying. My guess would be the latter.

I encourage anyone interested in this case to offer their own observations, particularly those with legal training and experience in criminal law. I’m certain I’m not qualified in criminal law to do all the dirty work here. And the more heads we get thinking about how the various pieces of this case fit together, the better.

We’ll make this a kind of open source campaign to get Maye some justice.

Reader David Seth Michaels writes:

Two additional things should be emphasized. First, according to the Hattiesburg paper, Maye was convicted of the capital murder on Friday morning, and he was sentenced to death on Friday afternoon. That means that the penalty phase of this case was less than 1/2 a day long, including opening statements and deliberations. That, compared to usual cases is way, way, way too little to convince a jury not to kill. It suggests ineffective counsel at the very least on sentencing.

Second, this case reached a verdict in January 2004. That was 2 years ago. There’s still been no filing (apparently) on the direct appeal. That could happen in Mississippi because of delays in getting a transcript (you need one to appeal), but more likely, it’s because whoever is representing Maye on the appeal doesn’t know what s/he’s doing. Put another way, nobody of modest means (Maye was renting a “shabby” duplex as described in the Hattiesburg paper) has enough resources to hire decent appellate counsel in a death case. I know this from experience. So a big question is why this guy doesn’t have appointed, qualified Miss counsel who are up to the task at hand.

As I mentioned in the original post, Maye’s family fired his first attorney, Rhonda Cooper, after his death sentence. According to Cooper, they then hired a guy from California who apparently has little legal background, and doesn’t appear to have yet filed an appeal. So far, I haven’t been able to get in touch with Maye’s family to verify the status of his representation or his appeal.

As for Cooper, she seems like a very nice woman who represented Maye the best she could. She takes on a lot of indigent clients. I’m not qualified to assess the competency of her representation, though it’s probably worth noting that Maye was her first capital case. I thought her suggestion to jurors that God would judge them should they not show Maye mercy was a bit odd, though for all I know that kind of thing may not be all that uncommon in some parts of the country.

In any case, several people have asked about a legal fund, and about the adequacy of Maye’s current counsel. I don’t know about any defense fund, and I’m neither qualified nor the appropriate person to start one up. Should one get going, though, I’ll be sure to post the details. When I called the Mississippi ACLU shortly before putting up the first Maye post, they had never heard of his case. Perhaps they’d be the most likely source of competent representation for him.

1. When was the warrant against Cory Maye issued? Where is it now filed?

The warrant was issued from the City Court of Prentiss by Judge Kruger. It should be with the evidence exhibits either with the Clerk or the court reporter

My comment: I should be getting a copy of both warrants tomorrow morning by fax.

2. Was Maye actually named in the warrant, or just his address? Or both?

He was not named, it was person or persons unknown occupying the property.

My comment: A warrant needn’t name a specific person, but this is the first sign that Officer Jones exercised little due dilligence to verify the tip he got from his informant. Because Maye isn’t named, we don’t know for sure if Maye or Jaimie Smith, the other resident of the duplex, was the primary target of the raid. The fact that Smith was named and Maye wasn’t, however, at least suggests that Smith was the primary target.

3. Were separate warrants issued for Maye and for Jaimie Smith? Were their separate addresses on those warrants?

Yes there were separate warrants

4. Officer Cooley testified to the grand jury that Officer Jones collected information from a confidential informant saying that Cory Maye was selling drugs. Precisely what did the confidential informant say that led to the warrant for Cory Maye? And who was the informant? Was he a former felon? Did he have a proven record of reliable tips?

The informant’s identity and exactly what he told Jones died with Jones. If the Judge Kruger had not found the informant was reliable the warrant could not have been issued.

My comment: Judge Kruger should make this information public. The credibility of the informant is important. If Officer Jones and the narcotics task force commenced a late-night, volatile raid based on a tip from a shady informant, they exercised poor judgment, a comment on their credibility that an appeals court might consider when deciding whether to believe them or Cory Maye on the contested issue of whether or not they knocked before entering his apartment.

5. Was the warrant issued based only on the statements of one informant, or were there others? Given that he had no previous criminal record, did the task force attempt any controlled buys or surveillance of Maye’s residence before raiding it?

Jones was handling the case and he is dead exactly what he did in the course of his work on it died with him

My comment: This is critical information, and Prentiss police ought to find this paperwork and make it publicly available. If Prentiss police burst into Maye’s apartment in the middle of the night based on a tip from an anonymous informant who didn’t even know Maye’s name, with no corroborating investigation, that’s a practice that (1) shows the poor judgment of both Jones and the narcotics task force, and (2) one would think the citizens of Prentiss and surrounding communities would want to know about. Anonymous informants have a long and unfortunate history sending police off on these kinds of raids with bad information.

The information is also important because it would give us some indication of whether or not Cory Maye was actually a drug dealer. At the moment, all signs indicate he wasn’t. And whether or not Cory Maye was a drug dealer is important because it offers some evidence of his state of mind when the police broke into his home, the critical point in a capital murder case. A drug dealer — who knows he regularly breaks the law — would have every reason to think a late-night raid on his apartment might be the police. Someone with no criminal record, who isn’t in the drug distribution business, and who hasn’t done anything wrong, is probably less likely to think the police would raid his home in the middle of the night. He’s probably more likely to think it’s someone who might do him harm.

6. Is it common practice for the narcotics task force to break down doors to serve search warrants on suspects with no previous criminal record, and based on tips from a single anonymous informant?

If the issuing judge finds probable cause to issue the search warrant the officers serve it. If the occupants refuse to allow entry, as Maye did, entry is usually forced. The informant was not anonymous Jones knew the informant.

My comment: Clearly, if this raid commenced based on a tip from a single informant, and with no corroborating investigation, Judge Kruger shares some blame. This is yet another big problem with no-knock and short-notice drug raids: There’s no oversight whatsoever on the judges who issue the warrants. A judge who signs off on a no-knock warrant doesn’t really have to answer to anyone. Even cities that have civilian review boards don’t permit them to look into the specifics of why a judge issued the warrant.

7. Why did police wait until after raiding Martin’s apartment before raiding Maye’s? If police were certain that there were to separate residences, why not raid both at the same time? If Maye were a drug dealer, wouldn’t raiding the other end of the duplex first tip him off, and give him an opportunity to flush his stash?

Both apartments were raided at the same time. There were two teams one that went to the front door of each apartment. This is a small duplex. Occupants of Smith’s apartment allowed entry. Maye did not open up after announcement was made at the front door. Jones then went to the back door.

My comment: Maye’s former lawyer has a different account of the raid.

8. Was Cory Maye ever charged with actual drug distribution, the reason the warrant was issued in the first place? If not, why not?

Jones only knew the identity of the informant and when he died any further proceedings on that died. We did not know the name of the informant.

My comment: Wouldn’t Jones have kept paperwork? Seems unfortunate that we’ll never know whether or not this raid was legitimate in the first place.

9. Do you believe today that Cory Maye was a drug dealer? Based on what evidence?

All I know about any drug activity is what was in the search warrants. Maye was not tried as a drug dealer he was tried for killing Jones. The issues in the case are; 1.Did Jones have a warrant, 2.Was he serving the warrant as a law enforcement officer and 3. Did Maye know he was a law enforcement officer when he shot him. The jury decided these things. Whether he was a drug dealer was not an issue in the murder case.

My comment: No, but it is an issue in whether or not the raid was legitimate, and whether or not Maye had reason to suspect the people breaking down his door were police.

10. Why did police change their story on whether or not drugs were found in Maye’s apartment? And exactly how much marijuana or cocaine is necessary to comprise a “trace?”

I do not recall they changed their story. As to a trace it would be a small amount.

My comment: Police clearly did change their story. Immediate reports said police found drugs in Maye’s apartment. Police later say they found the “trace.” This is a relatively minor point, given that police may have found the traces aftera more thorough search of the place. But what’s clear is that they didn’t find enough drugs for Maye to even be labeled much of a user, much less a dealer.

11. If Cory Maye was a suspected drug dealer, and if he was named in the warrant as a suspected drug dealer, and if Officer Jones knew there were two, separate residences at the duplex, why was the unarmed Officer Jones the first to enter Maye’s home? Do police typically raid the homes of suspected drug dealers unarmed?

There were several officers there and they were armed. Jones was armed and his gun was still in his holster after he was shot as I recall. His hands were free so he could force entry on the back door as I recall. He had backup officers with him at the back door.

My comment: This differs with the account I was given by Maye’s former attorney. She says the other officer broke down the door, and Jones ran in. I’ll have to verify when I get the trial transcript.

12. Was Jaimie Smith ever charged with drug distribution?

I handled the murder case and off the top of my head I do not recall the course of the drug case on Smith

My comment: The case against Smith does have some relevance to Maye’s plight. If no drugs were found on Smith, either, then the entire raid was a fraud.

13. If you’re correct in stating that two separate warrants were issued on the same day for the raid on the Smith-Maye duplex, why was the search warrant naming Jamie Smith and his residence in Cory Maye’s criminal file at the Jefferson Davis County Circuit Court, but not the search warrant naming Cory Maye and his residence? When I asked clerk Jerri Landry, the Smith warrant was the only warrant found in Maye’s file.

I do not know that other than what I said in my last email. The court reporter may have them. The original of it was introduced in evidence at the suppression hearing along with the other search warrant on Smiths place. I will try to send you copies. There is no question the warrants exist because the judge could not have allowed the murder case to go to trial if the warrant had not existed.

My comment: I need to talk to Maye’s former attorney again on this. I find it odd that the warrant against Smith would be in Maye’s file, but the warrant for the raid on Maye’s separate address would not. Could be an oversight. Could be merely that the clerk didn’t recognize that there were two separate warrants when I spoke with her on the phone.

In January 2004, the Hattiesburg American (sorry, no link) ran this quote from Maye’s first attorney, Rhonda Cooper:

“The thing that bothers me the most is the notion that this 21-year-old who was out on his own for the first time and caring for his daughter was supposed to act reasonably and perfectly, but the officer did not. The reason why the officer lost his life is because he failed to do a thorough investigation. There was no surveillance, no controlled buys. There was no announcement that he was a police officer.

“Everybody has to bear some responsibility for this. Cory reacted like any other person who thought someone was breaking into his apartment. He was scared. There was no intent to kill.

And therein lies the problem with hyper-militarized, highly-weaponized drug raids. Citizens on the other end of these raids are expected to behave perfectly rationally. They’re supposed to be cognizant, alert, and aware that it is police, and not illegal intruders, who are storming their homes. At the same time, police typically justify the tactics used in no knocks — including raiding late at night or just before dawn, and deploying dangerous “flashbang” grenades designed to confuse and bewilder a house’s occupants — for the precise reason that they catch drug suspects off guard, and disorient them. How, then, can they turn around and say that the innocent victim of a no-knock who shoots back should have known better?

For my upcoming paper on no-knock and short-notice drug raids, I’ve researched probably close to a hundred examples of botched drug raids, where cops clearly conducted a middle-of-the-night raid on an innocent person or family. Thus far, I haven’t found a single incident in which police themselves were ever charged with a crime for either raiding the wrong home, or shooting someone once inside.* In a handful of the more egregious cases in which a “wrong-door” raid has resulted in the actuall death of an innocent person, the city government has paid compensation, but even then, the settlements are generaly only paid under threat of a lawsuit. But even that is rare. Baltimore County, Maryland, for example hasn’t paid the family of Cheryl Lynn Noel a penny.

On the other hand, I’ve come across several cases where police raided the wrong home and the resident was prosecuted for firing back. Here are three:

I just sent the following set of questions to Buddy McDonald, prosecutor in the Cory Maye case:

Reader John Jenkins passes along the case of Wheeler v. Mississippi (536 So.2d 1341), in which the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out the capital murder conviction of a man (Wheeler) who was apprehended by police, got into a hand-to-hand struggle with three officers, stole one officer’s gun, then fired at a figure in the doorway. The figure turned out to be that of another cop who had come around from the back. Wheeler was determined to have knowingly fired the shot in the direction of the figure in the door way. The court upheld the murder conviction, but threw out the capital murder conviction (the willful and knowing murder of a police officer or fireman) because the justices found reasonable doubt as to whether or not Wheeler actually new the figure in the door way was that of a police officer.

Now, I don’t think Maye should be held even for murder. In fact, I think the cities and counties represented in the task force that conducted the raid owe him compensation. But if the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that there isn’t reasonable doubt to convict a man who — while in a hand-to-hand struggle with uniformed police officers — shot and killed a third officer standing in the doorway, of knowingly killing a police officer, seems to me there’s more than enough doubt to absolve Cory Maye.