Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post singing the praises of vigilante justice and bemoaning all of the rights that the accused receive. It was stated that on the island the poster grew up on, there was no law enforcement and no prisons. If someone did something to you, your family did something to their family. This was offered as the more desirable way of handling crime and punishment.

For those with the "shoot 'em all" mentality, I offer you this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_888454.html

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye's story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father's instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2006.

Shortly after midnight on December 26, 2001, Maye, then 21, was drifting off to sleep in his Prentiss duplex as the television blared in the background. Hours earlier, he had put his 18-month-old-daughter to sleep. He was soon awoken by the sounds of armed men attempting to break into his home. In the confusion, he fired three bullets from the handgun he kept in his nightstand.

As he'd later testify in court, Maye realized within seconds that he'd just shot a cop. A team of police officers from the area had received a tip from an informant -- later revealed to be a racist drug addict -- that there was a drug dealer living in the small yellow duplex on Mary Street. It now seems clear that the police were after Jamie Smith, who lived on the other side of the duplex, not Maye or his live-in girlfriend Chenteal Longino. Neither Maye nor Longino had a criminal record. Their names weren't on the search warrants.

Maye would later testify that as soon as he realized the armed men in his home were police, he surrendered and put up his hands. There were three bullets still left in his gun. But Maye had just shot a cop. And not just any cop. He shot Officer Ron Jones, Jr., the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ron Jones, Sr. Maye is black; Jones was white. And this was Jefferson Davis County, a part of Mississippi still divided by tense relations between races. Maye was arrested and charged with capital murder, the intentional killing of a police officer.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that America went the vigilante route espoused by this poster. Where would Mr. Maye be? In a coffin. What if we still had the law but the "convict 'em and shoot 'em" ethic that is *also* espoused here? Where would might we find Mr. Maye then? In a coffin.

But *because* Mr. Maye could appeal and *because* more evidence could come to light, Mr. Maye lives, he lost 10 years of his life but he still lives. He can now have the rest of his life. Is that worth the tax dollars? Without doubt.


Cheers
Aj

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

Thank you. It always does my heart good when people can put themselves in the situation of someone wrongly accused of a crime and say to themselves, "what rights would I want to have in my favor if I were in that situation". It is even better when folks can then extend that out to encompass actual criminals.

I think that criminals and victims of crimes have the same rights. The difference is that criminals don't *respect* the rights of others.

Cheers
Aj