Corey Maye was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of a police offi­cer in Prentiss, Mississippi, on the day after Christmas in 2001. The police offi­cer was part of a drug raid on a neigh­bor’s apart­ment. Maye claims that the police broke into his duplex unan­nounced and that he fired his gun in defense of him­self and his 18-month-old daugh­ter. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Michael Eubanks recent­ly ruled that Maye was enti­tled to a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing because his defense coun­sel pro­vid­ed inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The judge said that he would rule lat­er on Maye’s motion for a new tri­al or a ver­dict of not guilty. The case also has racial over­tones because Maye is black and the police offi­cer who was killed, Ron Jones, was white and the son of the town’s police chief. 

(Knight Ridder Tribune, Oct. 4, 2006, by Radley Balko; also Clarion Ledger, Sept. 26, 2006). See Innocence.

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