More on Maye’s gun
Radley Balko notes:
The gun was stolen, not unregistered. Mississippi doesn’t require guns to be registered. The prosecution apparently wanted to push the fact that the gun was stolen in an attempt to discredit Maye
We knew that already. Radley also has a rundown on the story with new facts, notably:
The narcotics task force did have a warrant for Cory Maye’s apartment.
Maye was not listed on the warrant.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:34 am
What difference does it make if he’s on the warrant? If somebody kicks in your door in the middle of the night, you’re not going to wait to see if they have a warrant before defending yourself.
No matter what the courts decide on this warrant issue, the justification for the shooting really rests on whether a person whose door is kicked in while he sleeps can be reasonably expected NOT to defend himself with whatever he has at hand.
Imagine the most saintly, no-record, registered gun-owning defendant. He’s peacefully sleeping at home with his wife and 2.5 kids. Somebody kicks his door in. That somebody will be shot, whether it be a cop or robber, warrant or no warrant.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:43 am
I don’t think it does make a difference. But the original claim was that there was no warrant.
December 14th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
I think the critical element of the case is external to it – these “no knock” raids serve very little – if any value. Other than a hostage / suicide situation, I cannot think of a situation where they are required.
In the case of a drug dealer, simply wait for them to come out. They all come out sometime. Even so, the case is built by performing controlled “buys” of the product. The “confiscation” the police so love to tout about isn’t *that* critical to prosecution. It’s certainly not worth someone’s life. Look at all the effort we expend to ensure we don’t use the death penalty on an innocent man. Yet we allow the lives of our police officers to be risked in these stupid no knock raids.