LAWYER DEFENDS WORK IN OVERTURNED SENTENCE

Jackson lawyer Rhonda Cooper said Monday she did her job in
defending Cory Maye of Prentiss, who was convicted of killing a
police officer in a 2001 drug raid.

"I was trying to save somebody's life," she said. "It was do or die."

On Thursday, Circuit Judge Michael Eubanks ruled that Maye should be
removed from death row, concluding that Cooper did not represent her
client adequately during the penalty phase of Maye's trial.

Eubanks overturned the sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing
for Maye, who fatally wounded Prentiss police officer Ron Jones. The
judge said he would rule later on the other matters raised by Maye's
new defense team.

"Judge Eubanks can't say I'm the bad guy when he's the big guy," Cooper said.

Eubanks found that Cooper had adequately represented Maye during the
guilt phase of the trial. "I'm pleased the judge found that I didn't
do anything wrong in the trial," she said.

On Jan. 23, 2004, jurors returned with their guilty verdict at 11:49
a.m. - a little more than an hour after they started deliberations.

Cooper said the verdict stunned her. "It took my breath away," she
said. "Nobody expected that."

The proper verdict, she said, would have been manslaughter.

She said she asked for more time to prepare for the penalty phase,
but the judge turned her down, saying jurors from the sequestered
panel were tired and wanted to go home.

"We had the conviction," she said. "Why did we have to move into the
penalty phase that afternoon?"

She should have been given more time, perhaps a week, she said. "We
didn't have to do it that Friday. Where is he going such that you
have to rush it?"

The penalty phase began at 2:20 p.m., and jurors began deliberating
at 4:35 p.m. By 6 p.m., they agreed unanimously on a verdict - Maye
deserved to die by lethal injection.

The new defense team questioned why Cooper had the trial moved from
Jefferson Davis County, where the homicide took place, but Cooper
said she felt she had no choice since Jones' father was police chief
in Prentiss.

The team also questioned why Cooper failed to have Maye and others
testify. The only defense witnesses were his mother and grandmother.

"When the judge tells me to go forward, who else do I have but the
mother and grandmother?" Cooper asked. "Why would I have Cory to
testify in the penalty phase when I had him testify in the trial,
and apparently the jury did not believe him?"

Maye, 25, who had no previous criminal record, testified he had
fallen asleep in the chair when officers raided his duplex the day
after Christmas 2001 in search of drugs.

Law enforcement officers first raided the apartment of Jamie Smith,
21, who lived on the other side of the duplex. They found drugs and
arrested him. He since has skipped out on bond and has not been found.

Officers testified at Maye's trial that they saw a light turned on
inside Maye's duplex, knocked on his door and announced themselves
but got no answer. They said Maye was standing when he fired on Jones.

But Maye testified at his trial that he didn't hear police announce
themselves, he grabbed his .380-caliber pistol and was on the floor
when he fired upward in self-defense. He had been watching his
18-month-old daughter.

Authorities found only remnants from a marijuana cigarette in Maye's duplex.

As for the lack of African Americans on the jury - two of the 12
jurors were black - Cooper said many potential black jurors opposed
the death penalty, leading to their dismissals.

Maye's death sentence should have been overturned in 2004, she said.
"He does not deserve to die under those circumstances, so if the
sentence is set aside, that's what we wanted from the beginning.
What's done ... is what should have been done before."

In the end, "we got what we wanted, which is no death sentence," she
said, "so if everybody has to celebrate at my expense to get Cory
off death row, so be it."

Staff writer Andrew Nelson contributed to this report.