Posted on 12/10/2005 6:28:19 AM PST by TennMountains
Edited on 12/11/2005 12:54:13 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
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I agree with your comments. Interesting how many lawyers participate on Free Republic.
More information and opinion on the blogs:
Lots of copies of documents and new details at:
http://www.theagitator.com/archives/025989.php#025989
Opinion and comments can be found at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alanesq/153131.html
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_12_11-2005_12_17.shtml#1134497241
http://crookedtimber.org/2005/12/12/knock-knock-bang-bang/
http://battlepanda.blogspot.com/2005/12/outrage.html
Tip to Instapundit!
If police don't want to be shot like burglars, they should work very deliberately to ensure that their actions are inconsistent with them being burglars.
Anyone know anything beyond what's at theagitator.com? Rereading the above quote after having read that site raises an interesting question: IIRC, according to the police, Maye turned on an interior light after they started banging on the door, and this was cited as evidence that he should have heard them yelling "police". But if the police had noticed the light going on, shouldn't that have caused Officer Jones to be cautious?
http://www.theagitator.com/autopsy.pdf
Notice in section three that the lethal entrance wound is described as "irregular" and labeled a "reentry wound" which indicates that the bullet went through a closed door. Another bullet was found lodged in the door trim.
Thanks for the update.
Radley Balko (The Agitator) is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. He came across this case while doing research for a paper for Cato on police use of paramilitary tactics. He's responsible for the publicity the case is getting.
Shootings through closed doors are generally not justifiable, but not prosecuted as capital murder either. If Maye fired through a closed door, that would seem to support his claim that he didn't know it was the police.
Could have been his girlfriend coming home from work without her key.
Maye had time to retrieve a gun and load it after hearing pounding but did not protect his child. The baby was left exposed on the top of the bed and not put in a protected place. Seems to dispute his claim that he was protecting his child by firing at the door.
If Maye knew where his daughter was, and if he was positioned so that nobody would be able to reach her without having to go through his line of fire, his tactics would not seem unreasonable. Indeed, if his daughter was sleeping, I would think leaving her asleep may have been prudent.
After all, if he grabbed her and set him beside him behind the bed, she might try to crawl away. Trying to maintain control over the baby and the pistol simultaneously might be dangerous and difficult. But if she's sleeping, and he can see that she's sleeping, then he doesn't have to worry about that.
If this police officer broke into the wrong house and died for it, somebody should go to jail. But not the guy wqho pulled the trigger.
As I said, shooting through doors is generally not justifiable, but not capital murder either.
There was a warrant issued for Maye's dwelling, but from what I understand there's no record of what oath or affirmation was given to secure it. While the Fourth Amendment doesn't explicitly require that the oath or affirmation used to secure a warrant actually be recorded, I would consider such a requirement implicit; IMHO any warrant for which no oath or affirmation is recorded should be regarded as void.
Thus, in the extant case, I would consider anyone who knew or should have known that the warrant for Maye's apartment was faulty should be held liable for Officer Jones' death. I can think of two such people: Officer Jones, and the judge who signed the warrant.
Maye says he was crouched down behind the end of the bed to protect himself. The same bed that his child was lying on top of, he was using for cover.
What would you have suggested as tactics? Anything Maye chose to do tactically would have certain risks, but putting himself behind the bed gave him some amount of concealment cover (which was probably the only sort of cover that was available) while preventing the intruder from getting between him and his child. It also meant that he would be in a position to quickly grab his child should the need arise.
Obviously you don't think such actions were well-calculated to protect his daughter, and some other approach would have been better. Care to elaborate on how Maye should have positioned himself?
That's right---no drugs were found.
Mayes had no criminal record.
The police officer was the son the the Chief of Police.
IF they yelled "Police" and broke the door down, and Mayes didn't hear it because he was asleep, it would be logical for Mayes, or you or I, to run for a gun, if we had one, and shoot an intruder violently breaking into our house. The policeman was not shot because he would "find drugs"---there were no drugs, and it makes no sense that Mayes shot him because he didn't want him to find drugs
THAT WEREN'T THERE (We tend to know if there are drugs in our own residences.I am actually surprised that the police didn't strengthen their case by planting drugs, but they seemingly didn't think they HAD to strengthen their case. (They were right). Unless there is a lot more to this story, and unless there was a very strong case made to the jury, with total incompetence on the part of the defendant's lawyer, then an innocent man in sitting on death row.
Yes but first allow me to correct you on two points. Drugs were found at Maye's residence and an oath and affirmation was submitted to justify the search warrant.
Okay now back to how Maye should have positioned himself. Face down and spread eagle.
Pure unsubstantiated hearsay, with zero accountability whatsoever.
If Officer Jones presented an affidavit and it were later shown that the affiant was lying, that person could be charged with perjury.
But if all that exists is Officer Jones claiming that someone told him something, there's no way any particular person could be proven to have been lying even if the allegations were fabricated out of whole cloth.
I know there are judges who will rubber-stamp warrants on the basis of garbage like that, but there are also judges who proclaim a lot of things that are clearly wrong.
Okay now back to how Maye should have positioned himself. Face down and spread eagle.
That would have been an effective means of protecting his child if the intruder had meant her harm?
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