Free Cory Maye

I’m no legal scholar, but a person should be able to defend themselves, their family and their home when an unannounced intruder enters their home. Even if said intruder is a police officer conducting a no-knock raid. Actually, I think you would be especially within your rights in such a blatant case of the state overstepping their powers. But, again, I’m not a lawyer or a Libertarian, so I could be wrong.

What I’m not wrong about is the actual case of Cory Maye, who awoke one night to an intruder in his home and, frightened for the safety of his young daughter, did what he thought he had to do. Now, would I shoot someone? No. I’m a coward that doesn’t own a gun. I’d be under the bed, hidden in the closet beneath dirty clothes or half-way out the back door. But I can sympathize with the predicament Cory Maye was put in, especially if a real criminal – his drug-dealing duplex neighbor – was the intended target of the police raid.

Well, that’s not the way they do things in Mississippi. Sidebar: since I’m an Atlantan, here’s my obligatory Alabama/Mississippi joke:

Q: What’s the only good thing about Alabama?
A: It keeps Mississippi from touching Georgia.

Now that the brevity of levity is over, I’m urging everyone who reads this post to blog about the plight of Cory Maye. It’s an issue that spans both “left” and “right” and speaks to the horrible ways governments have abused the powers given to them in recent years, by such terrible pieces of legislation like the Patriot Act. It’s one thing to want to prevent terrorism or drug dealing or drunk driving or any number of other illegal and inhumane acts, it’s another thing entirely to trample on the lives and rights of innocent individuals to achieve those goals.

And in this specific case, if you’re going to go all commando into the living room of a supposed drug dealer, wouldn’t it be worth the due dilligence to check the fucking address first? I’m just saying.

And while I don’t think AJ and I are talking about the same cases (Me: Maye; Him: Tookie), I think I agree. No capital punishment. If we ever kill an innocent person, that’s one innocent too many. Better to let a guilty man sit in a cell than have to explain to a grieving family member why an innocent is dead.

Again, I’m just saying.

[Via Atrios who points to Battlepanda]

One thought on “Free Cory Maye

  1. Death Penalty= bad. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And, as Ghandi so eloquently put it, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. So, so true.

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