Have your rights violated, defend your family, get the death sentence

Hot talk in the blogosphere is the case of Corey Maye of Prentiss, Mississippi. For a ton of detail on the case, check out TheAgitator.com, but I'll summarize it. On December 26, Prentiss police planned a midnight raid of Maye's next door neighbor with whom Maye shares a duplex. The police thought that the duplex was a single unit and busted into Maye's home, too. Maye was asleep and at home alone with his 18-month-old daughter at the time. Thinking that there was an intruder in his home, Maye opened fire on the first police officer who came into his bedroom and killed him.

In January of 2004, a jury of 12 Mississipians convicted Maye and sentenced him to death.

Here is TheAgitator.com's original post on the case, which includes more detail about the raid, the jury's motivation (which is just bizarre), and the inconsistencies in the story the police told.

As the father of a two-year-old girl, this one hits close to home.

Abolish the Death Penalty, the blog of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, has a fairly thorough vetting of the various blogs that have been commenting on Maye's case.

Oh, and one last note. Maye is black and the officer, Ron Jones, was white. I know, you're shocked.

Andy in H-burg