THE TRIALS OF CORY MAYE

by Andrew Cameron Williams

Since I last wrote about Cory Maye ("We Can Save Cory Maye," 12/30/2005), there has been much progress in his case. There is an on-line petition (http://www.whatisliberalism.com/index.php?pageId=87667) that has over 1600 signatures on it (as of 3/23/2006). Also, the prestigious DC law firm Covington & Burling (http://www.cov.com/index.html) has agreed to help Bob Evans, Maye's attorney, on a pro bono basis. They have been joined by Orin Kerr, a respected professor of law at George Washington University (http://www.volokh.com). And Radley Balko--a policy analyst for the Cato Institute and a libertarian blogger who broke this case on the Net--has a commentary about Maye's case up on Fox News' website (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184992,00.html).

Speaking of which, reading some of Radley Balko's recent blog entries on Maye (http://www.theagitator.com) today was like finding a low-rent version of the Warren Commission Report, especially when my eyes ran across this paragraph:

"In his amended motion, Bob Evans notes that the crime report on the bullet found in Ron Jones's body indicates that the bullet was too mangled to be positively traced back to Cory Maye's gun. Meanwhile, the bullet found in the door frame was able to be definitively traced to the weapon. In other words, a bullet that allegedly only hit tissue was mangled, while the bullet that hit wood and metal was intact enough to be identified. Yet more evidence that the bullet in Jones' body hit something to alter its trajectory before striking him."

What we have here sounds like another Magic Bullet Theory. What that something was, no one apparently knows--yet. And it gets even stranger, as you'll see below:

"But if you do check the report, you'll see that the bullet from Jones' body was positively traced to Maye's gun. So was the bullet in the door frame. The only thing that wasn't positively traceable was a casing found at the scene. So I guess the question is why would Evans and at least one other person have clearly remembered a different crime report than the one now available? The obvious answer is that Evans and the person who emailed me confused the crime lab report's description of the bullet with its description of the casing. But Evans is a lifelong Mississippian -- the kind of guy who strikes me as someone who knows his way around a gun."

Indeed--if not from personal experience, than from his years as a public defender who has been involved in many a murder trial. And how is it that a bullet that was positively identified as coming from Maye's gun later became too mangled for a conclusive ballistics test? Are we seeing signs of manipulated evidence here? Either way, it is clear that sufficient evidence of reasonable doubt has been accumulated, thereby justifying a retrial.

Meanwhile, here's the weirdest part of all:

"Dr. Stephen Hayne (the medical examiner who did the autopsy on Prentiss County Officer Ron Jones) has since been rebuked by an appellate court for coming up with a wholly unfathomable theory that, in his expert opinion, a bullet wound was consistent with the prosecution's theory that two people simultaneously fired the gun that created it." (Emphasis mine.)

So it seems we have a Magic Gun as well as a Magic Bullet.

My gut feeling on this is that Cory Maye is guilty of nothing. According to his sworn testimony and court reports, he had no legally significant amount of drugs on his person or property. He fired in self-defense against an unidentified intruder. He lowered his weapon and surrendered when the police did finally identify themselves. He gave himself up for trial and put his trust in Mississippi's justice system. The result? He's sitting on death row. Gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling about our justice system, don't it?

I can only imagine what a field day the late, great Bill Hicks would have had with this case. Perhaps this story will make its way to the nightly talk shows, where we'll at least get some watered-down, defanged satirical comments about "justice in Mississippi" and "a gun that takes two people to fire it." In the meantime, let's see if we can't forget our divisions over drugs and race and save an innocent man's life so he can go home to his family.

Since Radley broke the story, I'll give him the last word: "I think Maye deserves an apology. He certainly doesn't deserve death."

N.B. In my initial piece, I misidentified Jamie Wilson (Maye's neighbor in the duplex) as Jamie Smith. I also misspelled Radley Balko's first name. My apologies to both.