WE CAN SAVE CORY MAYE

By Andrew Cameron Williams

The War on Some People with Some Drugs that arenπt Alcohol, Caffeine or Tobacco has millions of prisoners to its credit, many of them ≥guilty≤ of having a joint in their possession. It has also cost the lives of many decent peace officers who were trying to do their jobs as they thought best. The most troubling cases are like the one described below:

Imagine youπre in your new home, dozing in a living room chair, your infant daughter asleep in the bedroom. Suddenly, thereπs a loud noise at your back door--sounds like intruders. You grab your gun from the bedroom, knowing you only have seconds to react because the back door leads directly into the bedroom. The intruders break into your room. You fire in the direction of their voices, either to warn them off or incapacitate them. Then--and only then--you hear, ≥Police! Police!≤

This is Cory Mayeπs story and, true or not, it casts a kleig light on much that is wrong with the War on Some People with Some (Illegal) Drugs. There is no conclusive evidence that Cory Maye was a drug dealer--just vague circumstantial. He had the bad luck to be living next to a suspected drug dealer. He also had the bad luck to believe that he had the right to defend himself from an intruderπs attack. And he had the further bad luck to have fired a shot that killed Prentiss County police officer Ron Jones. It didnπt help that his first lawyer had never tried a capital murder case, or that some of the jurors felt Maye was mocking the seriousness of the trial because he appeared to be smirking about serious issues.

What occurred after Maye fired his weapon? This, according to Mayeås court testimony--which has not been questioned: "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."

Hereπs the most telling point--to me--of Mayeπs testimony: When he heard the men yell, ≥Police! Police!≤ he did not resist arrest. He did not demand to see their badges or warrants. He put his gun down on the floor and slid it away from him--not to conceal it, but as a gesture of surrender. Does that sound like the action of a cold-blooded, pot-dealing cop killer? It doesnπt? Well, somebody ought to tell Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour, because thatπs just how Mississippiπs criminal justice system--on his watch--is portraying Cory Maye.

This story smacks of guilt by association. The police were building a case against Mayeπs neighbor in the duplex--Jamie Smith, a suspected drug dealer. Why not see if he and Maye are in cahoots? And if thereπs no narcotics on the scene, we can drop some and discover it later. (This is an old cop trick: if you want to hang somebody for a crime, you put a weapon in their hand or next to them after youπve knocked them out.) The search warrant specified Smith, but not Maye. So why bang down Maye's door unless you believe that Smith and Maye are co-conspirators? Conveniently, police claim they found marijuana in Maye's part of the duplex. The amount turned out to be 1.1 grams--about 1/6th of a teabag's worth. Some drug dealer.

I have to admit my bias towards police. It is this: Some of them are decent peace officers. Some of them are shits. And some are just order takers and clock punchers. (This is based in part on my own experiences--Iπve had an interesting life.) The real problem is that the criminal system--federal, state, local--gives police too much power, making them into ≥armed clergymen,≤ in Alan Wattsπ apt phrase. Orson Welles said it even better in Touch of Evil: ≥A policemanπs job is easy only in a police state.≤

Irregardless of Mayeπs guilt or innocence, it makes no sense to put him to death. Just as it made no sense for the state of California to kill Stanley ≥Tookie≤ Williams. Alive, he would have served as example of reformation, redemption. Dead, he becomes a martyr--an excuse for riots. The same thing may happen in Mississippi if Cory Maye is put to death.

It is too late to save Stanley Williams. It is not too late to save Cory Maye. At the end of this essay, I've included several links to webpages which contain all the information you'll need in order to write to Governor Barbour and other state officials to ask for clemency for Cory Maye. Whether you're a drug hawk or dove, please consider doing this. The War on People with Drugs doesnπt need any more victims or martyrs--on either side.

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/cat_cory_maye.php --Radney Balko's excellent blog entries on Cory Maye, including court transcripts of Maye's 2001 trial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Maye --Wikipedia's entry on Maye: incidentally his first name is actually spelled Cory; the article uses the correct spelling.

http://hammeroftruth.com/index.php?s=Cory+Maye --Stephen Gordon's excellent blog entries on Maye, which include links to Balko's blog.