Cory Maye: A case of injustice

My friend Angelica at Battlepanda is doing a marvellous job raising awareness of a story that I must admit I knew very little about before her important post prompted me to find out more:

The injustice of the Cory Maye case, a Mississippi man who currently sits on death row for killing in self-defence.

The story was first broken, at least in the blogosphere, by The Agitator, whose post Battlepanda justly praises:

Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid...

Maye's case is an outrage. Prentiss, Mississippi clearly violated Maye's civil rights the moment its cops needlessly and recklessly stormed his home in the middle of the night. The state of Mississippi is about to add a perverse twist to that violation by executing Maye for daring to defend himself.

I am firmly against the death penalty, and this case, as Angelica puts it, lies at "the ugliest nexus of race, civil rights violations, southern juries and our criminal justice system".

Angelica: "I am going to keep track of right and left wing blogs mentioning the Cory Maye to see which side is doing a better job." It's a competition, to be sure, but a competition with a purpose beyond itself, a competition for a just cause -- a just cause that, ultimately, must transcend partisan differences and the usual divisions in the blogosphere.

I'm happy to be on Battlepanda's "Blue team," and let me here add The Reaction to the list of blogs addressing the Maye case. And let me also praise all of my fellow bloggers out there, bloggers from across the spectrum, who are doing what they can to raise awareness of this important story.

Cory Maye must receive the justice he is owed. And that's not the "justice" that the state of Mississippi would have him receive at its own bloody hands, but the justice rooted in the truth of his story.

Cory Maye must go free.

Please. Spread the word. Let's make something happen. Let's ensure that justice triumphs for Cory Maye.