Hat tip to
The Agitator, who has done the real reporting here, and without whom I never would have heard of this story.
On December 26, 2001, the day after Christmas, the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force conducted a raid in Prentiss, Mississippi. Shortly before midnight, the Task Force hit the home of one Jamie Smith, in full SWAT gear, on a warrant from an anonymous tip that Mr. Smith was selling drugs out of his home. What the officers didn't know was that Mr. Smith's residence was a duplex. While executing the warrant, SWAT team officers broke down the door of the resident of the other home in the duplex, Mr. Cory Maye. Mr. Maye, who had no criminal record and was not the target of the search warrant, was home alone with his daughter and sleeping when the officers broke down his door.
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Officer Ron Jones, who happened to be the son of the Prentiss Police Chief, began to search the home, making his way back to Mr. Maye's bedroom, where Mr. Maye, fearing for his life and for the life of his daughter, shot Officer Jones, hitting him just below his bulletproof vest. Officer Jones died shortly thereafter. In January of 2004, an all-white jury convicted Mr. Maye, who is black, of capital murder in this case. The court sentenced Mr. Maye to death by lethal injection.
It is one of America's oldest laws and traditions that a citizen has the right to defend their own home against intruders. It is the law in the State of Mississippi that the murder of a police officer is only capital murder if the person in question has knowledge that the person is a police officer. But in the case of Mr. Maye, it seems he has no right to defend himself in his home against intruders who are breaking his door down while he sleeps. In this case, the burden was placed on Mr. Maye to know that the people invading his home were police officers although he had never been convicted of a crime, was not committing any crimes, and had no reason to consider himself a suspect.
The police initially stated that they found no drugs at the home of Mr. Maye. Later, they claimed to have found trace amounts of marijuana and cocaine. Maye's trial attorney says this `trace amount' was a single smoked marijuana cigarette. Police claimed at trial that they announced themselves upon entering Mr. Maye's home, although Maye denies this.
It is a tragedy that Officer Jones is dead. It is a greater tragedy that the war on drugs sends men like Officer Jones into people's homes in the middle of the night, so overburdened by the tast of trying to control the behavior of America's citizens that they do not even know they are invading the wrong home. And now another man is set to die, this time at the hand of the state, because he exercized his right to defend himself, his 18-month old daughter and his home against invaders in the middle of the night. Another all-white jury will send another black man to die. And America's failed War on Drugs will claim two more vicitms.
Governor Barbour, can you tell any of us why it is in the interest of the State of Mississippi that Cory Maye die?