http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013360.html

Waiting for Death in Mississippi

Radley Balko at the Agitator is creating a much-needed storm over Cory
Maye:

Maye today sits on Mississippi's death row, convicted of capital
murder for shooting police officer Ron Jones. It's probably worth
mentioning that Jones is white, and Maye is black. It's probably also
worth mentioning that at the time of his death, Jones' father was police
chief of Prentiss, Mississippi, where the shooting took place. It's
probably also worth mentioning that the jury who convicted Maye was
white.

The facts are also riveting: A no-knock search warrant executed on a
duplex -- a drug dealer lived on one side and Maye on the other.

Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at
night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the
warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his
18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom
after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black,
has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later
convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no
criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about
drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the
raid.

Radley isn't letting this one go. He has an update here.

Instapundit adds:

If the facts are as he reports, this guy never should have been
charged -- and he should have had a lawsuit (though those, unreasonably,
are usually losers) against the police for breaking down the wrong door.
The cop who was shot was the police chief's son. And there's a racial
angle, too.

The Hattisburg American reported during the trial (1/23/04) that Maye
testified in his own defense:

The man accused of killing Prentiss police officer Ron Jones in
December 2001 testified Thursday that he didn't know Jones was a law
enforcement officer when he shot him.

Cory Maye, 23, said he was asleep on a chair in the living room of
his Prentiss apartment as his 14-month-old daughter slept in the bedroom
when he heard a loud crash at his front door. "I immediately ran to my
daughter's room, got a pistol, put in a magazine and chambered a
round," said Maye, who is on trial for capital murder in Marion County.
"As I laid on the floor by the bed, I heard kicks at the back door. I
was frightened, I thought someone was trying to break in on me and my
daughter."

Maye testified that it was dark in his apartment when he heard
someone breaking into the back door, which was located in the bedroom.
"That's when I fired the shots," Maye said. "After I fired the shots, I
heard them yell 'police! police!' Once I heard them, I put the weapon
down and slid it away. I did not know they were police officers."