AT 11:00PM ON DECEMBER 26, 2001…
Members of the Prentiss, Mississippi police force and the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force conducted a drug raid on the duplex apartment of Jamie Smith. Cory Maye lived in the other apartment that made up the duplex. Maye was not named in the police warrant for the duplex. Smith was arrested for marijuana possession. As the raid on Smith commenced, some officers went around to the other side of the duplex, in search of more contraband. They either thought the other side of the duplex was part of Smith’s apartment, or they may have thought it was abandoned. The door was actually a door to Maye’s home. Maye was asleep and awoke when he heard the rear door being smashed in. The rear door opened into the rear bedroom where Maye’s 18 month old daughter was asleep. Fearing for himself and his daughter, Maye picked up his gun and fired at the intruders as they came into his daughter’s bedroom. A bullet hit and killed the first officer to enter, Ronald Jones. When other officers shouted ‘Police,’ Maye ceased firing and surrendered to arrest. Maye is now on death row for the killing of a police officer.
Sound fair? Black man with no criminal record, just criminal neighbors. Shoots a white cop. Sentenced to death by a white jury. High priced defense attorney Public defender.
This story is several years old, but only in December did it start to gather national attention. There is now a petition to have Maye set free (their server is shaky at the moment, probably due to traffic from BoingBoing), which I’ve signed, and I hope you’ll consider. The links below make it clear that bloggers made this story, and only recently has the mainstream news media started to cover it.
Links: CBS News roundup, Fox news story with lots of detail, BoingBoing post.
(Via Radical Congruency.)
This is an incredible story. I’m kind of in shock. When even conservative Fox News reports on this, I have to believe it is as terrible as they say in the article. I don’t own a gun, but if I did, and I had a daughter and this happened to me, it would be me on my death row. Well, maybe not, since I am white after all…
And you live in California, not Mississippi, white man.
Yeah, the bipartisan nature of the outcry on this one really caught my eye. You can always find people pleading to get people off of death row, but not usually on Instapundit or Fox News.
I think this case resonates with the gun lobby, hence the concern from conservatives.
And of course those opposed to the death penalty in the first place (such as yourself) point out how this kind circus is fairly common in death penalty cases. That’s scary if it’s true.
I do own a gun, a 12-gauge Mossberg, and let’s just say no one would describe Officer Jones as being “peppered pretty good” if he pulled a similar stunt on my family.
Justin Baeder
February 22nd, 2006
Yes, they wouldn’t say “he was seasoned to within an inch of his life”…
Gotta love John Stewart.
Yeah, the California thing would make it even more likely I’d escape the death penalty… or would it? With the exception of the little controversy we have going on right now, my chances would seem to be more on who is the Governor at the time!
Alan
February 24th, 2006