Intrepid Blogger Reporting

Radley Balko seems to have uncovered some significant new evidence in the Cory Maye case—evidence that casts serious doubt on key elements of the prosecution's case against the man convicted for shooting a police officer when a gaggle of cops burst into his home in the middle of the night to execute a warrant on his neighbor.

Comments

[WSDave]

Is it too late to bring in new evidence?

[tarran]

You mean the police lied?

I am shocked!

[MP]

Radley has been doing a tremendous amount of work on this case. He should be loudly commended no matter what happens to Cory.

[Evan]

MP: no doubt. Can you imagine this happening before the age of blogs? Even the best "investigative journalists" don't focus like Radley has...and he's not even on an MSM payroll.

[Evan]

MP: no doubt. Can you imagine this happening before the age of blogs? Even the best "investigative journalists" don't focus like Radley has...and he's not even on an MSM payroll.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

This case, more than others, will have far reaching implications. So far, the message is this: You damn well better not shoot an intruder for fear he is a fucking cop.

[R C Dean]

Sounds like his lawyer was incompetent as well.

[lunchstealer]

Sounds like his lawyer was incompetent as well.

You know, I've never had a problem with execution (at least a method of execution that is reasonably quick and reasonably painless) as a form of punishment for sufficiently heinous crimes.

However, I have absolutely got a problem with the death penalty as practiced currently. Here are my prescriptions for a just capitol case.

1 - Higher burden-of-proof requirements. Prosecutors want to try for a capitol case to make their names? No problem. But it had better be a slam dunk. The prosecutor has to choose to prosecute as a capitol case, and this institutes an all-or-nothing case. Stricter evidence requirements, stricter jury requirements.

2 - Dedicated defense. If a public defender is assigned, they must be assigned one case, and one case only. They must have had 10 years of defense work, including atleast 5 aquitals in trials, before they are qualified to take capitol defense cases. Of course, a defendent can hire their own defense, but if they do not choose to do so, and no suitable defense counsel is willing to take the case, then the capitol case cannot be brought to trial, and the charges must be tried as non-capitol charges.

Let's face it, if we're not sure enough of a suspect's guilt to jump through all those hurdles, and pay all the associated costs, do we REALLY need to put them to death, or can we just assume that we'd be satisfied with life without parole.

Kudos to Balko for following this case, by the way.

[tarran]

WS Dave asks, Is it too late to bring in new evidence?

The answer, unfortunately is probably no. In most jurisdictions, a new trial can be ordered should new exculpatory evidence come to light. However, if the defense had access to the evidence and did not produce the evidence at trial, then there generally is no grounds for a new trial.

There are many signs that his attorney was utterly incompetent; for example she had no closing arguments prepared when it came time for her to speak. Her weak comment, "I didn't expect it to get this far."

Such poor representation can be grounds for a re-trial, but generally the bar for proving that one's representation was sufficiently incompetent to warrant a re-trial is pretty high.

However, I think that Cory Maye might be able to get a new trial in that one of the primary witnesses against him, one of the officers participating in the ill-fated raid, did in fact contradict himself so blatantly that in my opinion he could be easily convicted of perjury. Additionally, there is some evidence that police tampered with the writing on the warrants after the raid went wrong, and such tampering would be grounds for a new trial; if the appelate court rules the warrants inadmissible, then any trial where they were used to convict someone has to be re-tried.

When one looks at all the troubling signs, the evidence tampering - the false testimony - the poor representation - the firing of another public defendant when he announced his intention to pursue appeals, I hope that the appelate courts will conclude that there are too many irregularities to ignore and order a new trial.

[tarran]

AAH!

What I meant to say in my first sentence was: The answer, unfortunately is probably yes!