Cory Maye struck a plea deal and will be released from prison (or has been already), ending for the most part one of those awful sagas in which you simply wonder wtf is going on? I first heard of the case from none other than Radley Balko, who was instrumental in making this happen.
Reader Interactions
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MikeJ
Instrumental in getting an innocent person to plead guilty?
Corner Stone
Fuck it.
KThug in the motherfuckin’ house!
Derf
I wonder wtf is going on in John Galt Cole’s pea brain every time I read another one of his overly simplified naive opinion pieces.
Cue the same people (with different handles) saying they are going to add me to their reality filters. Because heaven forbid someone shows them some reality. They are terrified of that.
PIGL
Reality will not be shown to us by the likes of you, troll boy.
If you think your hosts’ opinions are naive or over-simplified, you are free to exactly in how, by way of offering something more sophisticated and worldly. Such as you might have picked up from talk radio.
Don’t feel up to the challenge? Then feel free to DIAF.
Tomjones
Yep, Paul Krugman, political sage, will explain to all of us soon how we get an acceptable deal on the debt. Won’t he?
Villago Delenda Est
OK, Derf, let’s see some actual reality supporting your assertion in post #3. Because all there is there is word salad of the shitstain asshole kind, no actual bothering to substantiate any of your drivel about “John Galt Cole’s pea brain”.
In what way is this latest an “oversimplified naive opinion piece”? Put up or shut up, motherfucker.
cbear
@ Derf
WTF are you even talking about, you fucking dolt?
And, you’re John “Galt” Cole schtick is becoming incredibly tiresome.
You used to post comments that, every once in a while, might be thought-provoking, and sometimes even slightly funny–now, you’re just some nonsensical asswipe nursing your hurt fee-fees because Cole didn’t give you a pony and boring the fuck out of the rest of us.
Trollenschlongen (formerly Tim, Interrupted)
I’m glad the guy is out of prison, but rather than a plea agreement to manslaughter, the state should be paying him a few million bucks.
Maybe a civil suit to come?
But YAY that he is out of jail. Fucking cops out of control.
srv
Embracing the memes that you are the problem is certainly the first step to success.
tbogg
Thank Jeebus you said something nice about Balko lest he spend the whole holiday weekend butthurt because he didn’t get an “attaboy”.
Trollenschlongen (formerly Tim, Interrupted)
This is what I don’t get: If you really hate a commenter to the point that you find their comments worthless, pointless, whatever, which would indicate that you would have no desire to respond, why don’t you just ignore them?
Passing their posts on by without note would seem to be an excellent opportunity to practice a zen approach to life. :D
What’s with all the die in a fire/fuck off/go away/don’t be mean to Cole stuff?
b-psycho
MikeJ: he wasn’t going to get a new trial at all prior to the increased attention. Cory clearly rated getting to go home over having to continue to fight.
Of course, if it were my call, not only would Cory be free, but he’d be cleared and filing a suit against the state. But we’re not that close to justice yet.
Martin
Based on what? He pled guilty. He going to sue them for forcing him to convict a felony?
MattR
Tomjones
Yep. Screw Krugman for pointing out that the conventional wisdom is wrong and will harm our economy.
ruemara
@13 People don’t understand what a plea deal means. Unfortunately, the only thing this guy gets is his freedom. Good name, not so much.
Mnemosyne
My only worry is that the plea deal includes some agreement that he won’t sue the state because he was sent to death row for defending himself. What a nightmarish story.
dmbeaster
Yeah, it sucks that he had to do a deal with devils in order to get out of prison after being wrongfully convicted. But I can understand why he preferred to get out rather than lose more years with his daughter in order to clear his name.
And it sucks that those Mississippi asswipes would insist on a plea deal rather than admit wrongdoing.
cbear
@ Tim…
Hate? Where in the fuck do you see that in my comment?
I don’t hate derf/fred at all, and, in fact, used to like seeing him skewer some of our newer FP’ers and their minions, as I often do when you do it too.
However, this new act is tiresome, boring, and stupid, and I somehow felt strangely compelled to express my feelings on a blog that is sort of, kind of, maybe, known for it’s comments section. Weird, I know.
It’s also beyond hilarious to be called out on responding to someone’s comment with which I disagreed by, arguably, one of the biggest flame queens on this blog with a bad case of Keyboard Tourettes.
Finally, since I didn’t say or imply any of the above, how about NOT block-quoting me to imply that I did.
Mnemosyne
@ Martin
Given what I’ve read about the trial, there may be some possibility he could sue. There were a whole lot of shenanigans.
Wait, let me fix that — in a rational country with a working justice system, there would be some possibility he could sue. In this country, where you can be convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for shooting a cop who bursts into the wrong house without identifying himself, you’re probably right. As it is, he’s lucky his case didn’t go to the current Supreme Court, or he’d have the lethal injection needle in his arm right now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This O-Bot has to go with Krugman on this one. That horseshit about “tightening our belts!” has to die.
J.D. Rhoades
And it sucks that those Mississippi asswipes would insist on a plea deal rather than admit wrongdoing.
SOP.
“Well, your witness has recanted her ID of my client, the stolen goods were found on someone completely unrelated, and we’ve got witnesses placing my client in another state at the time of the break-in.”
“Okay, we’ll offer him a misdemeanor.”
True story.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just went back and re-checked the original story. All this heavy force night raid guns drawn doors broken down, was about “large quantities of marijuana”.
cbear
I think it is beyond awesome that Mr. Mayes has been able to extricate himself from the criminal justice system, by whatever means necessary, and is able to go home to his family.
Congratulations and thanks are due Balko by anyone who gives a damn about justice in this country.
Maude
cbear
This.
Joel
Keep educating us, KRS!
gocart mozart
Where were all the people who were incensed about the much much less egregious Randy Weaver incident? Why weren’t they at least as much outraged about the Corey Maye’s case. I wonder what colored their disparate views. Hhmmm.
Martin
My understanding is that once you’ve pled guilty, you’re done. In any civil case, that will keep coming back at you: “How can the state be civilly liable if you’ve admitted criminal guilt?”
I agree, the case is a criminal system trainwreck, but I think the only leverage he had was his insistence of innocence, and that’s now gone.
Nutella
@Jim
Yep, all the violence was completely unjustified. Finding large quantities of marijuana in a house does not require breaking in. A normal, non-violent search would have found the evidence. But then we couldn’t call it a drug war, now could we?
WyldPirate
The War on Drugs–a government program that has had the most profound negative impact on the black community than any government policy since 1970 really needs to end.
Obama simply laughed at the prospect of marijuana legalization, though. And he hasn’t reined in his drug dogs at Justice, DEA and elsewhere too damned much, either. He seems as if he would rather keep trashing lives and keep up the “employment program” of poor rural white prison guards watching over poor urban black drug offenders that couldn’t afford lawyers to get them off.
Obama gets an “F” in this area.
I’m glad Corey Maye is out, but he doesn’t get those 10 years of his life back over the gestapo-like tactics of the fucking police all over a damned near innocuous plant that big pharma and the alcohol breqwers don’t want as competition for their “wares”.
Villago Delenda Est
Hanging their sheets out to dry?
gocart mozart
I just heard of this case yesterday. I new Cory must be black and the cop white before I read up on the details.
Also,
= +1
Corner Stone
@gocart mozart
Ah, the old “you didn’t fuss about X” argument. I’m sure there’s a derailing for dummies category for that. Or something.
Nom de Plume
While it’s a terrible miscarriage of justice that Maye lost years of his life to prison, and will now bear the stigma of a felony on his record, let’s not forget that this case is not entirely without justice. The cop he shot is still dead.
Corner Stone
@Tomjones
If you’re too dense to not see the damage done by the president constantly reinforcing the “austerity is the only way!” meme it’s not my problem.
cbear
I’m still laughing about that ridiculous shit.
“I’m such a dumb fuck that I can’t actually answer your argument or counter your point, but if you go to stupidfucks.com and find page 4, subsection 2, paragraph 6, you will understand that I am right. Neener, neener.”
murbella
good reacharound for you Cole?
muse fondly on that the next time Balko helps Distributed Jesusland™ stick its penis up your ass.
murbella
good reacharound for you Cole?
muse fondly on that the next time Balko helps Distributed Jesusland™ stick its pen1s up your ass.
gocart mozart
@32
I am unclear on your point of criticism. Please elaborate.
Mnemosyne
@ Nom de Plume
So does everyone who shoots an armed man that bursts into their toddler’s bedroom in the middle of the night deserve to go to jail for 10 years, or is Maye a special case? Maye has steadfastly insisted that the cops did not identify themselves and the cops have changed their story repeatedly, so I think I’m going to have to believe the guy who has told the same story about what happened for 10 years.
gocart mozart
My understanding is that once you’ve pled guilty, you’re done. In any civil case, that will keep coming back at you: “How can the state be civilly liable if you’ve admitted criminal guilt?”
Corner Stone
@gocart mozart
IMO, it’s saying that an argument demands the same attention and reaction in all similar cases or there’s a problem with the advocate.
Nom de Plume
@ Mnemosyne: So does everyone who shoots an armed man that bursts into their toddler’s bedroom in the middle of the night deserve to go to jail for 10 years, or is Maye a special case?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in stating that what happened to Maye was “a terrible miscarriage of justice”, even though that’s exactly what I stated.
Mnemosyne
Yes, you said that right before you said:
I read that as you saying that Maye deserved to go to jail because he did, after all, kill that cop. If you were going the other direction and saying that it’s “justice” that the cop is dead, I disagree with you, but I will apologize for misreading.
Nom de Plume
Okay, I get the confusion now. No, I was not saying Maye deserved to go to jail. I believe he was acting in self-defense. And it may be harsh, but I also think it’s a bit of justice that the cop is dead.
Cermet
Did I read the story wrong? He lived in a Duplex and the bust was in the OTHER house. They then broke down a door (locked) that separated the two duplex living areas. His had no drugs and wasn’t directly involved. As for the cops calling out saying they were the cops and claiming to have knocked first – well, as we all know it is a ‘he says, she say’ and if the cops are one of ‘she says’, then in court, the cop is always right so tough shit if they make it up (and lets be realistic – even if they didn’t, they’s remember it as they did – that is how the mind does work … but the guy in the duplex was busy running to get a gun in terror that thugs (that was a close guess) had broken into his house.
The tragedy is a cop died, an innocent man was sent to jail so two families were destroyed – maybe the thugs can remove benefits for the dead cops family to save money for a tax cut and this end happy ever after.
Not!ABL
A month or so ago, Lysana explained precisely why your comment is asinine.
gocart mozart
I wasn’t saying that at all. The two case are not similar. In the Weaver case, uniformed officers fired at an armed individual after one of their fellow officers had already been killed and accidentally shot an unarmed woman and child who they may not have even seen. This caused the entire right-wing to blow a gasket, call the FBI jack-booted fascists, and demand a congressional investigation.
The Maye case was a far more egregious abuse of police powers IMO and yet the same people remained strangely silent. Perhaps it is because they considered the neo-Nazi Randy Weaver to be one of their tribe. That is the point I was driving at. If you have a better explanation for their hypocrisy, I would like to hear it.
Trollenschlongen (formerly Tim, Interrupted)
As you would know if you had a brain cell, I was paraphrasing some of you bj folks who love to get all bent out of shape and attack other commenters’ right as granted by Mr. Cole to post here.
I enjoy hearty and occasionally obscene debates with people I disagree with; you seem to think other people need YOUR approval to comment at all. News flash: they don’t.
LURVE your use of “tiresome” as if you are some bored old queen on her throne just so OVER what the court jester has to offer today. Well hey, don’t read what the jester writes and you’ll be ok, silly person.
cbear
@ Not!ABL
Thanks so much for setting me straight, although I find your and the good Lysana’s argument circular at best.
Btw, have you had a chance to clarify or correct your less than stellar understanding of the demographics of various Wash D.C. neighborhoods? I may have missed your post or comment on that subject.
kthxbai
Corner Stone
And again, this is saying the same thing I expressed as IMO.
“Abuse of power” = “Abuse of power” but “Reaction != Reaction” therefore there’s something wrong with the advocates.
There have been a number of cases, while not exactly representative, somewhat similar in scope of govt abuse of power. I remember clicking a link posted here at BJ that showed a white man shot fucking dead in his own house for holding a golf club a millisecond too long after cops broke in. There wasn’t much of a national outcry about that either.
I don’t know, I’m sure supporters of Randy Weaver were/are racist scumbags. I just do not follow the “make the same argument about X or you’re a hypocrite!”
Corner Stone
DFD is a joke. I can take any affirmative argument one cares to make here and wrap it into one of their expansive categories. Enough to muddy the waters anyway. Which is all the DFD’ers are interested in. People who learn it, love it, live it demonstrate a less than rigorous effort.
Sharl
and
Yeah, it was an unproductive, bad, nasty, wrong-wrong-wrong bust, of the type that are way too common these days, as Balko regularly points out.
Having said that, and according to Balko’s 2006 account:
Corner Stone
@cbear
I thought John Cole took that completely erroneous and misleading post down? It seemed thinly sourced, IMO.
Ohhh, that’s right. Allan the Hall Monitor forced Blinky to put it back up post haste.
gocart mozart
Shorter Corner Stone: “Analogies are for losers.”
Stop derailing the thread with your bugaboos CS.
Corner Stone
Ha! Good one dog.
People should do similar things in situations that are not similar except in the most tangential of ways or they are racist hypocrites!
Brazilian Rascal
Giving kudos to Balko hastens the inevitable libertarian-style hissy fit he’ll direct at you and liberals in general.
It’s still the decent thing to do, though.
murbella
@brazil
no its not– it just encourages the ill1bertarianat.
they are pure evil, and their spawn should be wiped from the face of America.
libertarians are conservatives that are smart enough to know better.
Not!ABL
you didn’t miss it; i neither stated that i would undertake such an unnecessary endeavor, nor did i state such a post or comment would be forthcoming.
Not!ABL
given the rigorous effort you expend on trolling and derailing, it’s laughable that you expect rigorous effort pushing back on each and every derailing attempt no matter how similar it is to prior attempts.
the point you are missing is that the content of DFD isn’t a response to all arguments — it’s a response to a certain kind of argument from a certain kind of internet user.
so, in fact, you cannot wrap it around “any affirmative arguments” (as go cart pointed out) although i have no doubt that you will try and think you have succeeded where you plainly have not.
Lojasmo
@derf #1
Not going to block you because your douche-baggery is too funny.
AxelFoley
@WyldePirate:
Somehow, I knew some asshole would bring Obama into this. This, which was well before he took office.
Fuck off, bitch.
AxelFoley
@ Nom de Plume:
Wow. Are you serious?
They busted into the man’s home without identifyig themselves. And busted into the wrong home, at that.
How is it justice that this man had to serve time for the police’s mistake in which he had to serve time for rightfully defending himself?
AxelFoley
@ Nom de Plume:
Oops. My bad. I see what you mean now.
(Damn I hate coming into a thread all late and shit)
Corner Stone
@ABL
Talk about the most bald faced derailing tactics. The celebrated “pre-emptive strike”, where you state what is the most correct rebuttal to your nonsense. It’s a favorite of President Stuck, as well as yourself.
DFD writing and arguments are lazy and garbage.
Corner Stone
No it isn’t. It’s a lazy catch-all for people who couldn’t argue their way out of a paper bag. IOW, victims who feel put upon and don’t have the chops. So they lean.
Not!ABL
first, your statement evidences that you don’t know what derailing (as used in this context) actually is.
second, when you successfully accomplish what you have said you can accomplish, i’ll gladly acknowledge it.
so you’ve repeatedly said. i wouldn’t expect you to say anything else.
for someone who is so accomplished at derailing, it is unsurprising that you don’t understand the point i have made.
(edited)
Lysana
Y’know what? You’re a concrete wall. Your brain is a concrete wall. And I’m damn sure it’d take someone else with your precise credentials (ones you’d pull out of your ass) to convince you otherwise. I fail because I’m a woman who is doing what she can to make things less shitty for disadvantaged groups she doesn’t belong to. ABL is a black woman doing much the same. So you’re going to sit back in what you think is your fortress of righteousness and tell us how wrong we are to make it obvious you’re repeating shit we’ve both heard and even done ourselves a thousand times before apiece because someone dared to codify your brand of bullshit.
This makes you an asshole. And not even the good kind of asshole, like Denis Leary, because you’re not even remotely funny.
Your kind is a cancer on this sort of conversation. You make it all about you. And that’s the last thing that’s needed.
So, if you actually give even a tenth of a shit about things getting better for disadvantaged groups, shut up. Period. Just resist the urge to comment. Read and think instead. You’re distracting the rest of us. And pissing us off.
*drops the mike*
gocart mozart
Apparently according to Corner Stone, derailing a thread is making an on topic point about another incident and the completely different reaction many conservatives had to it. A point many of the commentators and perhaps even John Cole would agree with.
Conversely, commenting endlessly over half the thread about a particular style of argumentation (one that I didn’t even engage in)is somehow not “derailing a thread”. Interesting brain you have there Corner Stone.
I will no longer feed this troll.
WyldPirate
Axel Foley @61:
Who died and put you in charge of what gets said, bitch?
Obama could do a little bit about directing the enforcement efforts of the Justice Department and DEA you stupid fuck. But there are more lives to be ruined apparently and more billions to be wasted on a totally fruitless Drug War.
And of course he can just laugh it off like he did in the first month or two of his term as I said.
Now you can politely saunter off and stick your head back up your own rectum. At least that would shut you the fuck up.
gocart mozart
Maybe he should make drug legalization the central plank of his campaign. that is sure to go over well in the swing states.
WyldPirate
@70 gocart mozart…
it would be a more fruitful plank in the platform than his legitimizing right-wing talking points such as rejecting Kenyesian economics and comparing the nation’s economy to a family.
But I would choose getting the fuck out of Afghanistan as fast as humanly possible and stopping the waste of life and billions a month and then maybe quit acting like an unemployement/underemployment rate of north of 15% is fine.
Corner Stone
Hilarious. “drops the mike”.
Fucking A clown but that is good shit.
Corner Stone
@gocart mozart
So, my 4 comments related to you are somehow half of a 70+ thread? Give me a break. You’ve failed to make your argument and you can run away now.
Thanks
ETA, oh shit forgot…drops the mike
Sophia
Moments that have to be experienced to be truly believed. The public’s cynical vocabulary is only a tenth of what is necessary to describe the criminal justice system. But hey. Everyone hates lawyers ftw!!!11
Cain
@ruemara
@13 People don’t understand what a plea deal means. Unfortunately, the only thing this guy gets is his freedom. Good name, not so much.
Yeah, he was completely innocent there. Maybe he could have appealed to the NRA or something.
I’m absolutely sorry to hear about the circumstances of this poor guy. Goddam drug war. It needs to be shut down. I think both Republicans and Democrats can agree to that can’t we?
cbear
picks up the mike
Where the hell did this thing come from?
tap. tap. tap.
Is this thing on?
testing, testing, testing.
Anybody?
Freaking weird.
drops the mike
Corner Stone
@gocart mozart
Some may suggest using rhetoric regarding austerity isn’t exactly helpful in a time of published U3 of 9.1%.
Corner Stone
I mean, fuckin’ A right? Tighten those godsdamned belts you fucking proles!
cbear
@ Cornerstone
Pssst. You forgot to use “the mike“, better write a little louder, bro.
Corner Stone
drops the mike..
fuck, I am choking to death on that.
cbear
Yep. Has to be one of my all times favs too. You’d normally have to pay good money to be entertained like this.
Yutsano
It’s meta. if I reveal anything more I’d have to eliminate you.
cbear
Confused the hell out of me when I first saw it, Yuts.
Thought it might be Cole’s idea of a bad replacement for the “reply” button or something, so I tried it. I feel kind of stoopid now, but at least I didn’t get electrocuted.
Yutsano
There are, indeed, much much worse outcomes for stoopid. Like starting unnecessary and expensive wars. That kinda ranks pretty high up there.
cbear
Btw Yuts, you might want to be careful about picking up the mike—could be one of those things where the third guy to use it gets hit with the voltage and Cole is lurking around the corner with his finger on the button just waiting for some unlucky bastard to wander by.
He’s sneaky like that.
Yutsano
I am very very cautious about picking up things if I don’t know where they’ve been. Or something. Usually.
cbear
Final thought: I’m extremely grateful that Cory Mayes will soon be home with his family and can only hope that he will be able to rebuild his life and enjoy a better future. I’m going to say a little prayer to my particular DOG for him and his family.
Again, job well done Radley Balko.
Yutsano
I’m sleeping with mine tonight. And no not like that you sickos. The sentiment is definitely appreciated.
celticdragonchick
@Gocart Mozart
The Randy Weaver incident ended up in two people being shot and killed who never should have been shot at all. That is hardly “less egregious”.
As for the second part, the Corey Maye case is outrageous and enraging. I will be contributing to his “out of jail” fund at Balko’s site, and I encourage others to help out as well.
Ben Vernia
I’m not sure whether this thread is really on-topic still, but here goes.
I’m one of Cory’s lawyers. Cory pleaded guilty on Friday to culpable negligence homicide, which under normal circumstances would carry a 2-20 year sentence. Pleading guilty to a felony was a truly bitter pill to swallow, but Cory will be released within a few days, and will not face the risk of a mistrial (which could result in continued incarceration awaiting retrial), or worse.
@Cermat:
This is not quite accurate. The investigation leading to the search warrants was focused on Cory’s neighbor, a man named Jamie Smith. The confidential informant (CI) who performed a “controlled buy” of drugs did so at Smith’s home, according to the CI’s brother, who was driving that night.
Contrary to the search warrant affidavit, the CI never entered Cory’s home. A subsequent search of his home turned up not the “large quantity” of drugs which the CI was said to have witnessed, but the remnants of marijuana in the butt of a “blunt,” about the same weight as 5-6 grains of rice, and a $100 misdemeanor even under Mississippi law.
When the fateful search was conducted, the police possessed two warrants, neither of which indicated to which home in the duplex it pertained. One bore Smith’s name, the other just listed “persons unknown.” They had identical descriptions of the “probable cause” for the search.
As a former prosecutor, my theory has always been that Officer Jones realized after his CI made the drug buy that he didn’t know which apartment in the duplex housed Smith. He was not able to reach the CI (who was driving around town still, talking with his brother, whom he had not seen for a long time). So Officer Jones got two warrants, thinking he would sort it out later – perhaps even before they arrived at the scene.
As it turned out, they executed both warrants- one team entered Smith’s home, the other Cory’s – into the bedroom where his 14-month old daughter was asleep. Cory thought his home was being invaded, didn’t hear the police announcements, and fired at what he thought was an intruder.
Cory immediately surrendered when the police identified themselves through the open door, and he said that he would not have fired if he’d known they were police.
That’s also essentially what he said in court on Friday: that he never intended to hurt or kill anyone, that he regretted Officer Jones’ death, and that he hoped everyone could forgive and move on with their lives.
As someone deeply involved in this case for 5 1/2 years, I think it’s unfortunate (but not surprising) that a complex, nuanced story is reduced to stereotype. I know that Cory is innocent, but I also know that he grieves for the life he took by mistake, an officer who, by all accounts, was conscientious and a good man.
The incident and criminal case was a tragedy for all concerned. Hopefully, everyone will heed Cory’s words and let the healing begin.
sharl
Mr. Vernia @90:
Thank you so much for taking the time to weigh in here, and provide details from your position of actual direct knowledge of the case. I think most folks who hang out here will also be appreciative (perhaps contrary to appearances).
Best wishes and thoughts to Mr. Maye and his family, and condolences to those left behind by Officer Jones. I hope all can hobble forward as best as circumstances will permit.
Odds may not look so good just now, but who knows, maybe we’ll survive to become a civilized species… eventually.
JGabriel
Ben Vernia:
Ben, thank you for weighing in here and clearing up some of the details for us. It truly is a tragedy for all concerned. And thank you for your work in Cory’s case. While the guilty plea is hard to swallow, given the circumastances, congratulations are still due for freeing him to go home.
.
Yutsano
Sometimes the best interest of the client is swallowing the bitter pill. Even though it is not the most ideal outcome, ya done good here.