Call me naive -- I didn't think that things that blatant happened anymore. (The prosecution being overzealous because of the identity of the cop who got shot, sure, but what was the jury thinking?)
I didn't think things that blatant happened anymore even in Mississippi. Messing with the evidence, shure, police misconduct, sure, but 12 citizens heard that story and thought "This man should die?" That's incredibly messed up.
That it is his fault because he was living next to a known lowlife drug dealer - with his young daughter, no less. What kind of scum would expose an innocent little girl to that? Oh, maybe it was because he was a DRUG USER himself and it was convenient for him. Yeah, probably didn't care a bit for his daughter - too stoned to get a decent job and work his was up to decent wages so he could afford a better place. No decent father would ever live there.
And where is the absentee mother? Too stoned to care for her own little girl? Probably just as well, she probably got pregnant being a prostitute and having unsafe sex. Yeah. The daughter would be better off in a foster home learning some decent values instead of being around drug dealers and prostitutes all day.
In a nutshell, maybe if the guy had an ounce of deceny he would have gotten an education and worked hard and believed in Jesus instead of keeping a gun and sitting around, stoned, waiting to kill a cop.
That's what the jury was thinking and it makes me sick.
The Balko post has a paragraph about post-verdict jury interviews. 1) Maye's lawyer--an uppity white woman--laid on too much morality in the closing argument. 2) Maye--an uppity black man--hadn't been raised to show respect.
The Balko post has a paragraph about post-verdict jury interviews. 1) Maye's lawyer--an uppity white woman--laid on too much morality in the closing argument. 2) Maye--an uppity black man--hadn't been raised to show respect.
This terrible story provides a good lead in to a post up on PrawfsBlawg today on why the death penalty should be abolished. I didn't see any particularly new arguments in the post, but it hits most of the usual points which I find persuasive.
Does anyone else find it "odd" that the lead man in a SWAT entry is unarmed?
Supposedly they weren't expecting anyone to be in that section of the house--they were just looking for a larger stash of drugs. But it is odd, you'd think he would have at least a side-arm.
No, I'm playing Devil's advocate. But I am serious that I think these are the kinds of things the jury was thinking when they rendered their verdict.
I've personally heard these kinds of things. It is easy to trash someone in court, and real easy to trash a poor person in front of middle or upper class people. Mostly because the non-poor desperately want to believe that bad things only happen to bad people, because otherwise, you know, it could happen to them and that is a fear they dare not face.
What's great about this story is that it provides a chance for Blogospheric Unity: gun-loving libertarians and bleeding-heart white-guilt liberals can come together as one.
It sucks -- I will go over to Obsidian Wings (when they put up their Cory Maye post) looking for somebody to hate on because he thinks the police were justified in breaking into Cory Maye's house and the jury did well in condemning him, but I don't think even Charles fuckin Bird is going to come through for me.
Seems to me this is the kind of case that ought to stir up both left and right. The left, I think, for its tradition of defending civil liberties. And the right for its tradition of standing up for a man's right to defend his home.
Glenn fucked it up in an update to the post, claiming that liberals won't care as much about this case as about Mumia Abu-Jamar. I thought he was just going to be a decent human being on this one, but he squeezed in some partisan hackery at the last second.
Ah well that's a relief. But Glenn doesn't post at ObWi damnitall! Maybe blogbudsman... but when you are relying on him you are really scraping the bottom.
Well that's fine for you I guess, you can rest easy in your ignorance of Obsidian Wings, RedState, Tacitus and other forums for CB's froth. Don't dig too deep, it's hard to get out.
I'm arguing with Liberal Japonicus about whether Charles has room for growth. I take the position that his writing has improved--marginally and sporadically--and LJ is skeptical. Hating on Charles Bird is my demented expository writing workshop.
Jeremy, maybe you could get into a good argument with DougJ about this one.
Improvement of writing is kind of beside the point -- it is his thinking that is problematic. He could be a horrible writer and it wouldn't really bother me as much as his thinking all these completely bone-headed things.
I need to check who DougJ is, I have probably tuned him out. My last ObWi disagreement was with DougM, but I am thinking that's not who you mean.
I didn't think things that blatant happened anymore even in Mississippi.
Mississippi has creeped me out before. I was eating at a local gas station/diner off the highway, when two black guys came in. They looked as local as anybody, wearing their overalls, but, they didn't fit in. Nothing overt happened, but the atmosphere changed. I don't think it was in my head - my companion noticed it, too. And, well, we're from Arkansas. We were quite glad to leave.
1) These sorts of things happen in most states with the death penalty. As bad as Mississippi is, Virginia and Texas have been worse.
2) The death of the cop and the very small town make this a *bad* combination.
3) Almost no one lands on death row who has had a decent lawyer who did a good job for them. In fact,the majority of death penalty cases are clusterfucks, pure and simple-- one thing after another that went wrong (like some horrendous accident). My reaction to the first couple of death penalty records I read was that reading one would convine almost anyone that the death penalty is a bad thing.
4) It really makes me angry that Reynolds suggests liberals wouldn't care about this one. That's just plain bullshit, and if he doesn't know it, he's clueless. The people working in death penalty cases are classic, old-fashioned liberals, except for the ones who are outright radicals.
5) Posts like this always make me wonder what the missing pieces are. I didn't see the name of the lawyer who did the trial. I'm dubious that the jurors gave the reasons the lawyer quoted for their verdict, although a lawyers desire to come up with *something* to tell themselves about a client on death row is probably pretty strong. I wonder who she is. In any event, another missing piece is the current status of the case-- it's obviously pending direct appeal, which will occur by statutory right. If the new lawyer messes that up, it could make the case very, very hard to win later on. The new lawyer *has* to take seriously the question of whether the trial lawyer was effective, because he has to raise that issue now or it is likely foreclosed forever.
"Further, why doesn't the Hollywood crowd take up the cause of a truly wronged black man on death row, instead of real criminals like Tookie and Mumia?"
Excellent question. Unlike those other cases, this seems like one without a political angle. It's unclear whether that will get it more attention, or less.
It's a big unclear. They're talking about the "hollywood crowd" which I don't identify myself with. What I don't know is whether Insty or his reader would identify me with the "hollywood crowd."
This is truly shitty. If one were simply paying attention to the news, one would be led to believe that Cory Maye is a drug dealer and a generally dangerous person.
Yeah, none of the newspaper accounts mentions the whole "wrong apartment" thing -- the two dwellings are treated as one location which the police were targetting. No doubt this is how the police department is presenting the case to reporters.
Hm, are you sure that juvenile was referring to the infant? I took them to mean one of the men detained from the other appartment. Maybe I wasn't reading closely.
The linked article in 44 repeatedly refers to the location as a duplex. As in, a single building divided into two entirely separate residences. What part of this did the police, the reporters, the prosectuor, and the jury not understand?
Maye's attorney tells me that after the trial, she spoke with two jurors by phone. She learned from them that the consensus among jurors was that Maye was convicted for two reasons. The first is that though they initially liked her, Maye's lawyer, the jury soured on her when, in her closing arguments, she intimated that if the jury showed no mercy for Maye, God might neglect to bestow mercy on them when they meet him in heaven.
Maybe Maye's attorney was exactly fucking right you self-righteous pricks. We spend plenty of time telling people that teh sexx and drugs are going to land you hell. How about actively perverting justice and ending an innocent man's life because you're a racist SOB?
What's making it worse for me is the suspicion that if the cops had killed Maye, thinking that he had a gun, if it had turned out to be a telephone, people would be saying that the cops had to make a judgment call, etc, etc. (Which doesn't strike me as wholly implausible defense of the cops, but it seems that if the cops get the benefit of the doubt in a split-second crisis, a homeowner confronted at night should receive a similar benefit of the doubt.)
And has someone e-mailed Glenn Reynolds yet? I doubt this man's case will be taken up by 'hollywood elites', whoever the hell they are, but that's surely not a serious criticism of liberals in general, right? (This guy's a law prof. Don't you have to be capable of fine distinctions to get that kind of job?)
54: well, I said "not not"--I thought that it was not necessarily appropriate to be sarcastic about Ron Jones. But then again, the guy who called him a hero and presumably fed the newspaper all that shitty stuff was not only the sheriff--who should've known that the bust hadn't gone down as planned
he's the sheriff of JEFFERSON DAVIS COUNTY. You know what? Fuck all these fuckers. Shoulda never pulled the fucking troops out.
These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press
January 24, 2004, Saturday, BC cycle
SECTION: State and Regional
LENGTH: 214 words
HEADLINE: Prentiss man to die for shooting of police officer; db/hatint/
DATELINE: COLUMBIA, Miss.
BODY:
A Jefferson Davis County will pay with his life for the 2001 shooting death of a Prentiss police officer.
Cory Maye, 23, showed no reaction when a Marion County jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of capital murder Friday for the death of Officer Ron Jones.
Jones was one of eight officers conducting a search warrant looking for illegal drugs at two apartments on Mary Street in Prentiss on Dec. 26, 2001. Shortly after Jones entered Maye's bedroom, he was shot in the chest, just below his bullet-resistant vest.
"It's been two years since he was killed and the hurt will never go away," said Jones' father, Ronald Jones, who was the Prentiss police chief at the time of his son's death. "But maybe now that we have the conviction this will bring us closure and we'll be able to move on."
Shortly before Marion County Circuit Court Judge Michael Eubanks sentenced Maye to death by lethal injection, he asked Maye if he wanted to address the court.
"No," Maye replied.
On Thursday, Maye testified he didn't know Jones was a police officer when he shot him. His defense attorney, Rhonda Cooper of Jackson, argued that Maye acted in self defense.
Because of the death sentence, Maye will get an automatic appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
I would say that Ron Jones is not not a hero in this case.
I thought that it was not necessarily appropriate to be sarcastic about Ron Jones.
Perhaps Ron Jones was generally a heroic guy, but I think it is not necessarily appropriate to call Ron Jones a hero in this case. Fearless, maybe, but fearlessly raiding the wrong guys house, and, as Cala pointed out upthread, it's kind of surprising that the SWAT team didn't shoot him right on the scene. What scares me is that the whole thing would have been swept under the rug if it weren't for this pesky trial.
As everyone told you in the other thread, presumably because they, like you, hadn't heard about the case before Balko dug it up. There are a hell of a lot of injustices out there, and not every one gets publicized.
Now, were you asking for information, or were you feebly attempting to insinuate something unpleasant?
And while I'm serial posting, that error led me into being cross because I hate people who restart arguments as if they hadn't happened already. But that did not, in fact, happen here, I simply got confused, my apologies to SwMo, and I hope no one's reading any of this.
Well it seems to me that putting timestamps on comments is just an open invitation for some disreputable blogger to start falsifying comment timestamps. I'm not saying it will happen here necessarily -- -gg-d has his weaknesses but I would never accuse him of such foul play -- but think about all those less noble blogs on blogspot, on typepad, on various made-up host names -- it seems far better to me, to avoid the temptation to falsify, by not including timestamp information. But that's just me, everyone has to find their own way to look themselves in the face at the mirror each morning. Come to think of it I wouldn't put it past -gg-d either, he's always had a shifty, untrustworthy manner about him.
That's a terrible story. With facts like that, even if you were going to convict the guy of a crime, how did he end up on death row?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:18 AM
This is just a crazy guess, but I wonder if race + the fact that the dead cop was the chief's son had anything to do with it.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:19 AM
Also, apparently the jury didn't like his manners. He will serve as an example for anyone else who presumes to be uppity.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:21 AM
Call me naive -- I didn't think that things that blatant happened anymore. (The prosecution being overzealous because of the identity of the cop who got shot, sure, but what was the jury thinking?)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:23 AM
I didn't think that things that blatant happened anymore
It's Mississippi.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:24 AM
I didn't think things that blatant happened anymore even in Mississippi. Messing with the evidence, shure, police misconduct, sure, but 12 citizens heard that story and thought "This man should die?" That's incredibly messed up.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:26 AM
shure
I am apparently subconsciously channeling Private Eye.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:27 AM
what was the jury thinking?)
That it is his fault because he was living next to a known lowlife drug dealer - with his young daughter, no less. What kind of scum would expose an innocent little girl to that? Oh, maybe it was because he was a DRUG USER himself and it was convenient for him. Yeah, probably didn't care a bit for his daughter - too stoned to get a decent job and work his was up to decent wages so he could afford a better place. No decent father would ever live there.
And where is the absentee mother? Too stoned to care for her own little girl? Probably just as well, she probably got pregnant being a prostitute and having unsafe sex. Yeah. The daughter would be better off in a foster home learning some decent values instead of being around drug dealers and prostitutes all day.
In a nutshell, maybe if the guy had an ounce of deceny he would have gotten an education and worked hard and believed in Jesus instead of keeping a gun and sitting around, stoned, waiting to kill a cop.
That's what the jury was thinking and it makes me sick.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:31 AM
what was the jury thinking?
The Balko post has a paragraph about post-verdict jury interviews. 1) Maye's lawyer--an uppity white woman--laid on too much morality in the closing argument. 2) Maye--an uppity black man--hadn't been raised to show respect.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:47 AM
what was the jury thinking?
The Balko post has a paragraph about post-verdict jury interviews. 1) Maye's lawyer--an uppity white woman--laid on too much morality in the closing argument. 2) Maye--an uppity black man--hadn't been raised to show respect.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:48 AM
This terrible story provides a good lead in to a post up on PrawfsBlawg today on why the death penalty should be abolished. I didn't see any particularly new arguments in the post, but it hits most of the usual points which I find persuasive.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:52 AM
Does anyone else find it "odd" that the lead man in a SWAT entry is unarmed? I don't know what that means it just stood out to me.
Posted by Redcane | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:01 AM
I didn't think that things that blatant happened anymore
Welcome to the South.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:02 AM
also, torture works!.
what a great country..
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:03 AM
So who's the person to harrass about this? Haley Barbour?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:06 AM
I would just like to note that barbour means "snot" in arabic, at least colloquially.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:08 AM
Does anyone else find it "odd" that the lead man in a SWAT entry is unarmed?
Supposedly they weren't expecting anyone to be in that section of the house--they were just looking for a larger stash of drugs. But it is odd, you'd think he would have at least a side-arm.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:12 AM
Playing Devil's advocate some more -
Y'all are expending a lot of effort to defend a black druggie who murdered a fine upstanding cop who's only crime was doing his job.
The thing is that if we side with the cop killer on this then we might have to open our eyes and see a lot of other stuff we don't want to see.
Let this one go. Things worked out as best they could given a dead cop and a neglected girl. Nobody got lynched here.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:13 AM
Tripp, are you serious?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:15 AM
Silvana - see last line of 8.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:17 AM
No, of course he isn't.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:18 AM
oh. good.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:18 AM
silvana,
No, I'm playing Devil's advocate. But I am serious that I think these are the kinds of things the jury was thinking when they rendered their verdict.
I've personally heard these kinds of things. It is easy to trash someone in court, and real easy to trash a poor person in front of middle or upper class people. Mostly because the non-poor desperately want to believe that bad things only happen to bad people, because otherwise, you know, it could happen to them and that is a fear they dare not face.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:32 AM
What's great about this story is that it provides a chance for Blogospheric Unity: gun-loving libertarians and bleeding-heart white-guilt liberals can come together as one.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 10:49 AM
It sucks -- I will go over to Obsidian Wings (when they put up their Cory Maye post) looking for somebody to hate on because he thinks the police were justified in breaking into Cory Maye's house and the jury did well in condemning him, but I don't think even Charles fuckin Bird is going to come through for me.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:02 AM
Pre-empted by Radley I'm afraid:
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:02 AM
this is an interesting story
I think you misspelled "a fucking travesty of justice."
Posted by argle | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:08 AM
Glenn fucked it up in an update to the post, claiming that liberals won't care as much about this case as about Mumia Abu-Jamar. I thought he was just going to be a decent human being on this one, but he squeezed in some partisan hackery at the last second.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:21 AM
Ah well that's a relief. But Glenn doesn't post at ObWi damnitall! Maybe blogbudsman... but when you are relying on him you are really scraping the bottom.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:22 AM
I'd seriously never heard of this Charles Bird fellow until I clicked on Jackmormon's name today out of curiosity.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:27 AM
Well that's fine for you I guess, you can rest easy in your ignorance of Obsidian Wings, RedState, Tacitus and other forums for CB's froth. Don't dig too deep, it's hard to get out.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:33 AM
I'm arguing with Liberal Japonicus about whether Charles has room for growth. I take the position that his writing has improved--marginally and sporadically--and LJ is skeptical. Hating on Charles Bird is my demented expository writing workshop.
Jeremy, maybe you could get into a good argument with DougJ about this one.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:46 AM
Improvement of writing is kind of beside the point -- it is his thinking that is problematic. He could be a horrible writer and it wouldn't really bother me as much as his thinking all these completely bone-headed things.
I need to check who DougJ is, I have probably tuned him out. My last ObWi disagreement was with DougM, but I am thinking that's not who you mean.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:59 AM
I'm of the pedegogical school that believes (hopes?) you can address thinking errors through writing errors.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 12:17 PM
And on the ontological status of DougJ, see here.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 12:35 PM
I didn't think things that blatant happened anymore even in Mississippi.
Mississippi has creeped me out before. I was eating at a local gas station/diner off the highway, when two black guys came in. They looked as local as anybody, wearing their overalls, but, they didn't fit in. Nothing overt happened, but the atmosphere changed. I don't think it was in my head - my companion noticed it, too. And, well, we're from Arkansas. We were quite glad to leave.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 12:56 PM
1) These sorts of things happen in most states with the death penalty. As bad as Mississippi is, Virginia and Texas have been worse.
2) The death of the cop and the very small town make this a *bad* combination.
3) Almost no one lands on death row who has had a decent lawyer who did a good job for them. In fact,the majority of death penalty cases are clusterfucks, pure and simple-- one thing after another that went wrong (like some horrendous accident). My reaction to the first couple of death penalty records I read was that reading one would convine almost anyone that the death penalty is a bad thing.
4) It really makes me angry that Reynolds suggests liberals wouldn't care about this one. That's just plain bullshit, and if he doesn't know it, he's clueless. The people working in death penalty cases are classic, old-fashioned liberals, except for the ones who are outright radicals.
5) Posts like this always make me wonder what the missing pieces are. I didn't see the name of the lawyer who did the trial. I'm dubious that the jurors gave the reasons the lawyer quoted for their verdict, although a lawyers desire to come up with *something* to tell themselves about a client on death row is probably pretty strong. I wonder who she is. In any event, another missing piece is the current status of the case-- it's obviously pending direct appeal, which will occur by statutory right. If the new lawyer messes that up, it could make the case very, very hard to win later on. The new lawyer *has* to take seriously the question of whether the trial lawyer was effective, because he has to raise that issue now or it is likely foreclosed forever.
Enough of a rant for now.
Posted by TomF | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:13 PM
From Instanpundit:
"Further, why doesn't the Hollywood crowd take up the cause of a truly wronged black man on death row, instead of real criminals like Tookie and Mumia?"
Excellent question. Unlike those other cases, this seems like one without a political angle. It's unclear whether that will get it more attention, or less.
It's a big unclear. They're talking about the "hollywood crowd" which I don't identify myself with. What I don't know is whether Insty or his reader would identify me with the "hollywood crowd."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:21 PM
if it wasn't clear, the part in quotes was from an email to Glenn, the part in italics was Glenn itself.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:22 PM
Tripps must go to my church, or something.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:29 PM
Tripp*
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:30 PM
*op. cit., pp. 37-43. Note that no reference is made in this passage to the author's earlier experiences at the Mineshaft.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:36 PM
Reading a bit about this, it seems that no drugs were found in either unit. Two other residents were temporarily detained, but released with charges.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:47 PM
I'm sorry to say, apostropher, but Ron Jon is the hero this time.
This is truly shitty. If one were simply paying attention to the news, one would be led to believe that Cory Maye is a drug dealer and a generally dangerous person.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 1:55 PM
Yeah, none of the newspaper accounts mentions the whole "wrong apartment" thing -- the two dwellings are treated as one location which the police were targetting. No doubt this is how the police department is presenting the case to reporters.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 2:03 PM
I love the way the newspaper describes a one-year-old as a 'juvenile' who was taken into custody. Haw about calling her an infant?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 2:12 PM
Hm, are you sure that juvenile was referring to the infant? I took them to mean one of the men detained from the other appartment. Maybe I wasn't reading closely.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 2:17 PM
The linked article in 44 repeatedly refers to the location as a duplex. As in, a single building divided into two entirely separate residences. What part of this did the police, the reporters, the prosectuor, and the jury not understand?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 2:19 PM
Also, this:
Maybe Maye's attorney was exactly fucking right you self-righteous pricks. We spend plenty of time telling people that teh sexx and drugs are going to land you hell. How about actively perverting justice and ending an innocent man's life because you're a racist SOB?
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 2:23 PM
I would say that Ron Jones is not not a hero in this case. At worst, the victim of his own tragic mistake and stupid police procedures.
As for the jurors, ah fuck, murderous thoughts deleted.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:05 PM
How awful.
What's making it worse for me is the suspicion that if the cops had killed Maye, thinking that he had a gun, if it had turned out to be a telephone, people would be saying that the cops had to make a judgment call, etc, etc. (Which doesn't strike me as wholly implausible defense of the cops, but it seems that if the cops get the benefit of the doubt in a split-second crisis, a homeowner confronted at night should receive a similar benefit of the doubt.)
And has someone e-mailed Glenn Reynolds yet? I doubt this man's case will be taken up by 'hollywood elites', whoever the hell they are, but that's surely not a serious criticism of liberals in general, right? (This guy's a law prof. Don't you have to be capable of fine distinctions to get that kind of job?)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:22 PM
Yeah, the jurors are going to be hella surprised when they get to Heaven and find out that God is big, black, and very pissed off.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:24 PM
Don't you have to be capable of fine distinctions to get that kind of job?
Um, no. QED.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:25 PM
re: 50, I'm pretty sure SamK was being sarcastic, since *sotto voice* Apostropher isn't really a hero either.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:34 PM
Tia is apparently crazy. Unless she was objecting to the use of the indefinite article. Apostropher is THE hero.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 3:45 PM
54: well, I said "not not"--I thought that it was not necessarily appropriate to be sarcastic about Ron Jones. But then again, the guy who called him a hero and presumably fed the newspaper all that shitty stuff was not only the sheriff--who should've known that the bust hadn't gone down as planned
he's the sheriff of JEFFERSON DAVIS COUNTY. You know what? Fuck all these fuckers. Shoulda never pulled the fucking troops out.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 4:13 PM
Sorry MW. I am auto-pwned.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 4:17 PM
54: Tia, Google says you're wrong times 10,500.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 9:29 PM
Hmm. Doesn't the 'ssippi require premeditation to convict someone of capital murder?
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:16 PM
Copyright 2004 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press
January 24, 2004, Saturday, BC cycle
SECTION: State and Regional
LENGTH: 214 words
HEADLINE: Prentiss man to die for shooting of police officer; db/hatint/
DATELINE: COLUMBIA, Miss.
BODY:
A Jefferson Davis County will pay with his life for the 2001 shooting death of a Prentiss police officer.
Cory Maye, 23, showed no reaction when a Marion County jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of capital murder Friday for the death of Officer Ron Jones.
Jones was one of eight officers conducting a search warrant looking for illegal drugs at two apartments on Mary Street in Prentiss on Dec. 26, 2001. Shortly after Jones entered Maye's bedroom, he was shot in the chest, just below his bullet-resistant vest.
"It's been two years since he was killed and the hurt will never go away," said Jones' father, Ronald Jones, who was the Prentiss police chief at the time of his son's death. "But maybe now that we have the conviction this will bring us closure and we'll be able to move on."
Shortly before Marion County Circuit Court Judge Michael Eubanks sentenced Maye to death by lethal injection, he asked Maye if he wanted to address the court.
"No," Maye replied.
On Thursday, Maye testified he didn't know Jones was a police officer when he shot him. His defense attorney, Rhonda Cooper of Jackson, argued that Maye acted in self defense.
Because of the death sentence, Maye will get an automatic appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12- 9-05 11:26 PM
I would say that Ron Jones is not not a hero in this case.
I thought that it was not necessarily appropriate to be sarcastic about Ron Jones.
Perhaps Ron Jones was generally a heroic guy, but I think it is not necessarily appropriate to call Ron Jones a hero in this case. Fearless, maybe, but fearlessly raiding the wrong guys house, and, as Cala pointed out upthread, it's kind of surprising that the SWAT team didn't shoot him right on the scene. What scares me is that the whole thing would have been swept under the rug if it weren't for this pesky trial.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12-10-05 6:25 AM
All Tookie, All the Time...
...but nary a peep from the ACLU, NAACP, or CourtTV... and those outfits are custom-tailored for a story like Cory Maye's.
Why the silence?
Posted by SwMoLibertarian | Link to this comment | 12-12-05 10:38 PM
As everyone told you in the other thread, presumably because they, like you, hadn't heard about the case before Balko dug it up. There are a hell of a lot of injustices out there, and not every one gets publicized.
Now, were you asking for information, or were you feebly attempting to insinuate something unpleasant?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 8:56 AM
Huh. Somehow, I was under the impression that the comment immediately above my last was new.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 8:58 AM
Don't worry, it is always good not to let the last post on a thread be from someone as clueless as our Show Me friend.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:02 AM
And while I'm serial posting, that error led me into being cross because I hate people who restart arguments as if they hadn't happened already. But that did not, in fact, happen here, I simply got confused, my apologies to SwMo, and I hope no one's reading any of this.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:02 AM
But every comment makes it into the recent comments sidebar, and makes it more likely that someone will read this. Including mine. BWAHAHAHA!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:13 AM
And yay timestamps!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:17 AM
And yay timestamps!
Eh. They cause as many problems and misunderstandings as they solve, if you think about it.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:20 AM
Thinking is hard work. What problems / misunderstandings do they cause?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:23 AM
Well it seems to me that putting timestamps on comments is just an open invitation for some disreputable blogger to start falsifying comment timestamps. I'm not saying it will happen here necessarily -- -gg-d has his weaknesses but I would never accuse him of such foul play -- but think about all those less noble blogs on blogspot, on typepad, on various made-up host names -- it seems far better to me, to avoid the temptation to falsify, by not including timestamp information. But that's just me, everyone has to find their own way to look themselves in the face at the mirror each morning. Come to think of it I wouldn't put it past -gg-d either, he's always had a shifty, untrustworthy manner about him.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:31 AM
When did we decide that ogged's name must not be spelled?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12-13-05 9:44 AM