Cory Maye gets second chance in the 'justice' bullring

Cory Maye and daughter Ta'Corriana
(screenshot from reason.tv video,
"Mississippi Drug War Blues")

At some point the American justice system quit being about justice and morphed into a cynical blood sport for the lawyering classes who only care about ego gratification and winning at all costs.

Now Cory Maye is reentering that befouled gladiatorial arena for a second chance at justice.

In 2001 Maye's home was forcibly invaded. In the ensuing exchange of gunfire the intruder's leader, Officer Ron Jones, a white cop conducting a drug raid on an innocent man's home in the middle of the night in Mississippi, was fatally shot by Maye, a black man.

Maye was sentenced to death in a primarily white county.

As anyone who has followed this case knows, Maye won his second chance due largely to the efforts of Radley Balko, Reason magazine senior editor, investigative reporter and former Cato Institute policy analyst, who tirelessly trained his flashlight in all the dark corners where a whole swarm of self-serving "legalcrats" huddle, to expose such deeply questionable issues as paramilitary police tactics, self defense, the reliability of informants, racial bias, and junk science.

As longtime civil rights activist Julian Heicklen repeatedly tells his supporters, "The price of justice is eternal publicity."

In a libertarian society Cory Maye is hands-down innocent because there is no such thing as a victimless crime, and anyone who attacked him, police officers included, would be dealt with as any other gang of criminals.

For background on the Cory Maye injustice, read Cory Maye, who shot police officer in controversial incident, gets new trial by Civil Liberties Examiner J.D. Tuccille.

Both Cory Maye and Officer Jones are victims of the pointless, reckless, utterly indefensible politician's bloody obscenity known as the Drug War.

As Balko stepped forward in his role of investigative reporter, so too is it time for ever greater numbers of conscientious law enforcement officials to do the same.

Radley Balko (courtesy of
Cato Institute)

Imagine if America's armed officers and agents rebelled against the very police state in which they serve by refusing to carry out any order that isn't legal under the Constitution.

That rebellion is happening.

The rebellion is called Oath Keepers. These are people who identify themselves as "a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters" who proclaim on their website that the oath they took was "to the Constitution, not to the politicians" and that they therefore "will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders, such as orders to disarm the American people or to place them under martial law and deprive them of their ancient right to jury trial."

Of course it will never work without an army of libertarian lawyers standing behind them prepared to sue their superiors for taking reprisals against them.

Obama liberals, who see the Constitution as nothing more than a scrap of paper standing between themselves and unlimited power, are already demonizing them. CNN seems to be leading the charge, calling them anti-Obama. But Oath Keepers have responded that their purpose "is not to be anti-Obama. It is to uphold their oath to the Constitution. When Obama upholds his, Oath Keepers will be behind him."

If Officer Ron Jones had been an Oath Keeper he might be alive today and the innocent, nonviolent Corey Maye might never have seen the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. 

Don't miss a DALLAS LIBERTARIAN EXAMINER article: Click Subscribe and enter your email address or choose the RSS feed. Either way you’ll be alerted to the latest piece when it's published. And don't forget to click Email to send this article to a friend.

Get the latest libertarian news from the All Libertarian All The Time news source:
The Libertarian News Examiner.