THE DRUG WAR'S CASUALTIES

A circuit court judge in Mississippi has ordered a new sentencing
trial for Cory Maye, a man sentenced to death for shooting a police
officer who had broken into his home in a no-knock drug raid in 2001.
Judge Michael Eubanks ruled recently that Maye's legal counsel during
the sentencing phase was unconstitutionally inadequate, and he is
expected to rule later on requests for a "not guilty" verdict or a new trial.

Maye's plight is a case study in the problems with drug policing in
America, from questionable confidential informants to invasive
paramilitary tactics, overworked and underfunded defense attorneys,
and how all of the above seem to disproportionately affect low-income
people, particularly African-Americans.

Maye, who is black, shot a white police officer, Officer Ron Jones,
who also happened to be the son of the town police chief, in
Prentiss, Miss., a town plagued by poor race relations, high
unemployment, soaring crime rates, and a burgeoning drug trade.

Late on the night of Dec. 26, 2001, Jones assembled a group of
policemen to respond to a tip from a confidential informant that
there was marijuana in the bright yellow duplex Maye and his family
shared with a man named Jamie Smith. Smith, described in the search
warrants as a "known drug dealer," had drug charges pending against
him from the previous August.

Maye maintains that he didn't know the raiding officers were police.

He says he fired his gun in self-defense, and in defense of his
18-month-old daughter, who was asleep at the time. The first jury to
hear his case didn't believe him. In 2004, he was convicted of
capital murder - the intentional killing of an on-duty police officer
- - and sentenced to death.

I stumbled upon Maye's case in December of 2005 while researching a
paper on paramilitary drug raids for the Cato Institute. Having
reviewed close to a thousand drug raids, there was much about Maye's
case that I found troubling. When I obtained copies of the search
warrants and affidavits, and saw that Maye's name didn't appear on
them, I began writing about the case on my personal weblog. In just a
few days, blogs from across the political spectrum had picked up on
the case - nearly all of them, like me, speaking out against the
apparent injustice of his sentence.

Events since have only confirmed my suspicions. In December of last
year, Prentiss Mayor Charles Dumas called Bob Evans, Maye's chief
counsel and Prentiss public defender, to tell him that the town's
aldermen were unhappy with his decision to represent Maye in his
appeal. Dumas told Evans he might well lose his job should he
continue representing Maye - an odd threat, given that as public
defender, this was Evans' job. In January, Evans was fired.

By then Maye's plight caught the attention of Abram Pafford, an
associate at the large Washington, D.C., law firm Covington and Burling.

Pafford had been pushing his firm to offer pro bono assistance to
Evans. In February, the firm came on board. Over the next several
months, the new legal team conducted its own investigation, hired its
own experts, and assembled a new motion to overturn Maye's conviction.

Recently, a private investigator discovered the identity of the
confidential informant whose tip led to the raid: a poor, uneducated
local resident named Randy Gentry. When Gentry found out the
investigator was working for Maye's defense, he left a profane
45-second rant on the answering machine of one of the defense
lawyers, complete with racial epithets and threats. Gentry, described
in police affidavits and search warrants as reliable and trustworthy,
has apparently been used as an informant on several occasions.

Last week in Poplarville, Miss., Maye was finally given a hearing on
his post-trial motions. His new legal team mounted a vigorous
defense, calling new expert witnesses, showing computer animations,
and presenting significant new evidence - the fruits of several
months of investigation.

The hearing played out like a cinematic southern courtroom drama.
Maye's family had chartered a church bus to bring nearly 50 friends
and family to fill out the defense side of the courtroom. On the
prosecution side, Jones' family, Prentiss town officials, and about a
half-dozen police officers showed up in support of the state.

It's hard to fathom that Maye would have knowingly and intentionally
killed a police officer. He had no criminal record, and at worst, a
misdemeanor amount of marijuana in his home. He is off death row for
now, but that isn't enough. He ought to be released from prison. At
the very least, he should be given a new trial.

What's more, Maye's case should provoke a national debate about drug
policing, including the use of confidential informants and
confrontational paramilitary tactics. Despite the predicament he's
in, Maye at least now has the benefit of adequate council. One
wonders how many outrages like his still wait to be discovered.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Radley Balko is author of the book "Overkill: The Rise of
Paramilitary Police Raids in America," and his writing enabled Maye
to secure the new trial counsel from which he now benefits. Readers
may write to the author at the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts
Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20001; Web site: www.cato.org. For
information on Cato's funding, please go to
http://www.cato.org/sponsors/sponsors.html.