Cory Maye

Last updated

Cory Jermaine Maye (born September 9, 1980) is a former American prisoner. He was originally convicted of murder in the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron W. Jones, during a drug raid on the other half of Maye's duplex.

Contents

Maye has said he thought that the intruders were burglars and did not realize they were police. He pleaded not guilty at his trial, citing self-defense. Nevertheless, Maye was convicted of murder and was sentenced to death. The case attracted little attention until late 2005, when Reason magazine senior editor and police misconduct researcher Radley Balko brought it to light on his blog The Agitator. [1]

Balko's research raised several questions about Maye's conviction and in particular about the reliability of medical examiner Steven Hayne, who performed the autopsy on Jones and testified at the trial. According to Maye's supporters, his conviction also brought up issues such as the right to self-defense, police conduct in the War on Drugs, racial and social inequities in Mississippi and whether he received competent legal representation.

On September 21, 2006, Maye's death sentence was unexpectedly overturned by Judge Michael Eubanks, who ruled that Maye had received incompetent legal representation during his sentencing phase, and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Maye was sentenced to life in prison. On November 17, 2009, the Mississippi Court of Appeals ruled that Maye's constitutional right of vicinage was violated when Judge Eubanks refused to return the case to Jefferson Davis County, where the alleged crime occurred. The en banc court reversed Maye's conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. The State of Mississippi appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On December 2, 2010, the Mississippi Supreme Court issued its decision, in which it held that Maye was entitled to a new trial on the ground that the trial court had improperly refused to issue a self-defense instruction that would have highlighted for the jury Maye's right to act in defense of his infant daughter, who was present in the home on the night of the police raid that led to the shooting.

On July 1, 2011, Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement in which Maye pleaded guilty to manslaughter; Maye was then sentenced to ten years in prison, time he had already served. Maye was transferred to Rankin County, Mississippi for procedural paperwork and out-processing and was released on July 18, 2011.

Death of Officer Jones

At 11 p.m. on the night of December 26, 2001, Ron Jones along with other police officers and an agent employed by the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force, a four-county police agency responsible for drug enforcement, went to Maye's duplex for the purpose of drug interdiction. Jones, though not a member of the task force, had received a confidential tip that large quantities of marijuana were being stored and sold in the apartment of Jamie Smith, who lived in the other half of the duplex. The officers obtained search warrants for both apartments. Whether the warrants legally allowed for a no-knock entry is still not clear.

Smith was arrested without incident. Although some illicit drugs were found in his home, Maye's former attorney, Rhonda Cooper, says Smith was never charged with drug possession or distribution. They found a little more than a gram of marijuana, most of it old and ashen—at worst a misdemeanor. Jefferson Davis County District Attorney Claiborne "Buddy" McDonald says he does not remember Smith being charged or convicted.

There is disagreement about what happened next. The officers then either served the warrant on Maye's half of the duplex (prosecutors would later say that both were served simultaneously) or entered what they thought was another door to Smith's in search of more contraband.

Four of the officers who took part in the raid testified they knocked on Maye's door and identified themselves as law enforcement officers. Maye testified he heard neither knocks on his door nor anyone announce themselves. Maye testified he was asleep on a chair in the living room when he heard a crash, prompting him to run to his daughter's bedroom and ready a .380 caliber pistol that he kept boxed and unloaded on top of a tall headboard. When Jones entered the bedroom, Maye fired three times. Jones was wearing a bulletproof vest, but one bullet hit just below the vest, and the injury proved fatal.

Jones, the son of Prentiss' then police chief, was not a regular member of the narcotics task force, but a K9 officer for the Prentiss police department. Trial testimony showed that when Jones exited the apartment and fell to the ground outside, his pistol was holstered.

Trial

The trial was held in neighboring Marion County, after Maye's lawyer successfully argued for a change of venue. But his lawyer's original request and agreement for the venue change had been to Lamar County, an adjoining county that is 88% white. When she belatedly realized her error, Maye's trial lawyer tried unsuccessfully to have the trial moved back to Jefferson Davis County. Although the trial judge refused the request to return the trial to Jefferson Davis County, he did again change the venue to Marion County where the trial was subsequently held. Of the 12 jurors subsequently selected, two were African American.

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."

The weapon used was stolen approximately one year prior to the shooting. Maye claims it was given to him by a friend. The prosecution claimed that officers announced at the front door and then at the back door of Maye's residence. He and his lawyer say that they only identified themselves as police after he had shot Jones. The defense tried to show Maye did not know the persons breaking in were police officers, and that he was acting to protect his infant daughter in the bedroom. In mitigation the defense argued Maye's lack of a criminal record and his young age (21).

The jury took five hours to convict Maye on the capital murder charge. The same afternoon, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Michael Eubanks sentenced Maye to death by lethal injection.

Incarceration

Maye was imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary ParchmanGateNewPhoto.JPG
Maye was imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary

Maye entered MDOC on January 26, 2004. [2] He was incarcerated in the State of Mississippi's male death row in Unit 32, [3] [4] a part of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Sunflower County, [5] and later in the Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, Mississippi. [2]

Discrepancies in police and court records

Since Jones died, it is impossible to know how thoroughly he investigated the tip he received before passing it along. He claimed he had observed unusually heavy traffic at the residence, but left no written record of when he made those observations (important since Maye had only moved into the apartment a few weeks before the raid). The credibility of the informant is not known beyond Jones' statement that information he had previously provided had led to a single arrest. It also appears that Jones and a colleague did not verify the tip, which is typically done by making a controlled drug buy.

Jones' affidavit for the warrants names Smith but not Maye, referring only to "person or persons unknown" in the other apartment. Both apartments are described using the same language.

Times have been changed on official records of when evidence was collected from both apartments. Characteristically for what was initially a major drug arrest, Smith's apartment was swept immediately afterwards. However, several changes made to the documents for Maye put the time of that evidence collection at 5:20 a.m., several hours after the raid.

Maye's family and his attorney also accused officers of beating him while he was in custody after his arrest. His mug shot, taken the day of the shooting, shows Maye with a prominent swollen and discolored right eye. Officers and prosecutors denied that any beating occurred.

Appeal

Maye's appeal was argued [6] before the Mississippi Court of Appeals on June 4, 2009; on November 17, 2009, the court set aside his conviction and ordered a new trial on the grounds that he was denied his right to have the trial conducted in the county of the alleged crime.[ citation needed ]

On June 24, 2010, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted petitions for writ of certiorari filed by both the State of Mississippi (arguing that the Court of Appeals' decision to grant Maye a new trial was erroneous) and Maye (arguing that the Court of Appeals erred in not vacating his conviction entirely and dismissing the charges for insufficient evidence, and advancing alternative grounds for a new trial). On December 2, 2010, the Mississippi Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals' decision and granted Maye a new trial on the grounds that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury as Maye had requested on the nature of self-defense and defense of others (i.e., his daughter).[ citation needed ]

Plea agreement

On the morning of July 1, 2011, Maye was offered and accepted a plea agreement. Judge Prentiss Harrell of the 15th Circuit Court of Mississippi signed the agreement under which Maye pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a ten-year sentence, which was decreed to be time served. Maye was then transferred to Rankin County, Mississippi for procedural paperwork and out-processing, [7] and was released on July 18, 2011. [8]

Media coverage

Internet coverage

See also

Related Research Articles

Police perjury, sometimes euphemistically called "testilying", is the act of a police officer knowingly giving false testimony. It is typically used in a criminal trial to "make the case" against defendants believed by the police to be guilty when irregularities during the suspects' arrest or search threaten to result in their acquittal. It also can be extended to encompass substantive misstatements of fact to convict those whom the police believe to be guilty, procedural misstatements to "justify" a search and seizure, or even the inclusion of statements to frame an innocent citizen. More generically, it has been said to be "[l]ying under oath, especially by a police officer, to help get a conviction."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radley Balko</span> American writer

Radley Prescott Balko is an American journalist, author, blogger, and speaker who writes about criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties. In 2022, he began publishing his work on Substack after being let go from The Washington Post, where he had worked as an opinion columnist for nine years. Balko has written several books, including The Rise of the Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.

David Rice and Edward Poindexter were African-American activists charged and convicted of the murder of Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard. Minard died when a suitcase bomb containing dynamite exploded in a North Omaha home on August 17, 1970. Officer John Tess was also injured in the explosion. Poindexter and Rice had been members of the Black Panther Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Kathryn Johnston</span> 2006 police killing

Kathryn Johnston was an elderly woman from Atlanta, Georgia who was killed by undercover police officers in her home on Neal Street in northwest Atlanta on November 21, 2006, where she had lived for 17 years. Three officers had entered her home in what was later described as a 'botched' drug raid. Officers cut off burglar bars and broke down her door using a no-knock warrant. Police said Johnston fired at them and they fired in response; she fired one shot out the door over the officers' heads and they fired 39 shots, five or six of which hit her. None of the officers were injured by her gunfire, but Johnston was killed by the officers. Police injuries were later attributed to friendly fire from each other's weapons.

In the United States, a no-knock warrant is a warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking or ringing a doorbell. In most cases, law enforcement will identify themselves just before they forcefully enter the property. It is issued under the belief that any evidence they hope to find may be destroyed between the time that police identify themselves and the time they secure the area, or in the event where there is a large perceived threat to officer safety during the execution of the warrant.

Shareef Cousin is an African-American man from New Orleans who was convicted of the first-degree murder of Michael Gerardi in 1996 and sentenced to death as a juvenile in Louisiana. At age 17, he became the youngest condemned convict to be put on death row in Louisiana, and one of the youngest in the United States.

Georgia v. Smith was a court case held in 2007 resulting in the conviction of Joseph and Sonya Smith for child abuse and murder following the death of one of their sons, Josef Smith, from "acute and chronic" corporal punishment. The couple, who lived in Mableton, Georgia, prior to their incarceration were each sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence.

<i>Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal</i> 1982 murder trial in Pennsylvania

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal was a 1982 murder trial in which Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried for the first-degree murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. A jury convicted Abu-Jamal on all counts and sentenced him to death.

Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), is a United States Supreme Court case dealing with defendants' rights to challenge evidence collected on the basis of a warrant granted on the basis of a false statement. The court held that where a warrant affidavit contains a statement, necessary to the finding of probable cause, that is demonstrated to be both false and included by an affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, the warrant is not valid.

Ryan David Frederick, born 1979 or 1980 (age 44–45) is a former prisoner of the state of Virginia. He was convicted in 2009 of voluntary manslaughter for killing a police officer who was serving a search warrant. Frederick has said that he acted in self-defense and did not know that the person breaking into his house was a police officer. The case is notable for the magnitude of support the defendant received from his community, the press, and blogs, as well as for the relative leniency of the charge the jury chose for conviction in the death of an on-duty police officer. Frederick was reportedly released in 2016.

Steven Timothy Hayne is a pathologist from the US state of Mississippi who attracted significant controversy surrounding his medical practices and testimony in criminal trials, most notably those of Cory Maye, Jimmie Duncan, and Tyler Edmonds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose Guerena shooting</span> 2011 fatal law enforcement incident

Jose Guerena was a U.S. Marine veteran who served in the Iraq War and who was killed in his Tucson, Arizona, home on May 5, 2011, by the Pima County Sheriff's Department SWAT team. Deputies were executing a warrant to search Guerena's home while investigating a case involving marijuana being smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Rock Police Department</span> Law enforcement agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, US

The Little Rock Police Department (LRPD), is the primary law enforcement agency for Little Rock, Arkansas in the United States.

Robert E. "Bob" Evans is an American politician. He is a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from the 91st District, being first elected in 2007. He is a member of the Democratic party.

The prosecution of Rodricus Crawford in Caddo Parish, Louisiana in 2013, attracted national media attention. Crawford, a black man, was convicted and sentenced to death that year for suffocating his one-year-old son. His death sentence was seen as part of a pattern in the parish, which has the highest rate of death penalty sentencing in the nation. The prosecutor in this case said this penalty was needed for society's revenge.

Shona Banda is a Kansas resident of Garden City and medical cannabis rights advocate who was arrested for possession of cannabis in 2015. Her arrest and seizure of her child sparked a debate regarding cannabis in Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Botham Jean</span> 2018 murder case in Texas

On the night of September 6, 2018, 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean was murdered in Dallas, Texas by off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger, who entered Jean's apartment and fatally shot him. Guyger, who said that she had entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own and believed Jean to be a burglar, was initially charged with manslaughter. The absence of a murder charge led to protests and accusations of racial bias because Jean—an unarmed black man—was killed in his own home by a white off-duty officer who had apparently disregarded police protocols. On November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on a charge of murder. On October 1, 2019, she was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment the following day. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2021.

On January 28, 2019, in the Pecan Park area in the East End district of Houston, Houston Police Department (HPD) officers initiated a no-knock raid on a house, killing the two homeowners, a husband and wife: Dennis Wayne Tuttle and Rhogena Ann Nicholas. They were aged 59 and 58, respectively. Five HPD officers sustained injuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Execution of Nathaniel Woods</span> Controversial execution by the state of Alabama in 2020

The execution of Nathaniel Woods occurred on March 5, 2020, at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama. The execution was controversial due to beliefs of his innocence, skepticism about his culpability, and the fairness of his trial. Woods had surrendered inside a crack house during a police raid that attempted to serve a months-old arrest warrant on Woods. Another man came downstairs and opened fire, killing three officers. Woods ran from the scene after the gunfire erupted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Jones (prisoner)</span> American prisoner (born 1980)

Julius Darius Jones is an American prisoner and former death row inmate from Oklahoma who was convicted of the July 1999 murder of Paul Howell. His case has received international attention due to claims of innocence and controversy surrounding his trial and conviction. Jones was convicted of the crime on the basis of what the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals later characterized as an "overwhelming" body of evidence consisting of "a co-defendant who directly implicated Jones, eyewitness identification, incriminating statements made by Jones after the crime, flight from police, damning physical evidence hidden in Jones's parents' home, and an interlocking web of other physical and testimonial evidence consistent with the State's theory."

References

  1. ↑ Balko, Radley (October 2006). "The Case of Cory Maye". Reason . Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Corey Maye". Mississippi Department of Corrections. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Convicted Cop-Killer Wants New Trial". WLBT . February 9, 2004. Archived from the original on March 6, 2012. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Mississippi Drug War Blues: The Case of Cory Maye". Reason . Retrieved August 12, 2010. Cory Maye is currently housed in Unit 32, the high-security wing at Mississippi's Parchman Penitentiary.
  5. ↑ Kalahar, Jon (October 8, 2007). "'Wall Street Journal' Questions Hayne's Ethics". Archived from the original on March 6, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on December 25, 2009. Retrieved July 28, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ↑ Balko, Radley (July 1, 2011). "Cory Maye To Be Released From Prison". The Huffington Post . Retrieved July 1, 2011.
  8. ↑ Balko, Radley (July 19, 2011). "Cory Maye Is Free". TheAgitator.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.