Cory Maye

If you are interested in issues relating to police powers, the drug war, no-knock warrants, the criminal justice system and gun control, the Cory Maye case is worth checking out. Radley Balko has been doing extensive research into the situation and has all Maye-related posts here. The jist of the matter is this (although admittedly the story gets much more complicated from both sides of the story):

Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

This story has been big news in the blogosphere this week, and is starting to get picked up by the mainstream media.