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.