Mississippi Supreme Court Grants Cory Maye a New Trial

This is fantastic news.

The Mississippi Supreme Court granted Cory Maye a new trial today (PDF), though on different grounds than the Mississippi Court of Appeals, which granted the trial based on a change of venue issue. The state's supreme court instead ruled that Maye's trial judge should have let the jury consider a "defense of others" defense, and that the judge's refusal to include that in the jury instructions amounted to reversible error.

If you haven't followed the story at all, Maye is in jail - on death row - because he shot and killed a man violently breaking into his house in the middle of the night. The man happened to be a police officer, but the police hadn't knocked or announced, and there's an excellent chance that the police were operating on an illegal warrant. Maye shouldn't have been charged, let alone convicted. He shot at an unidentified man breaking into his house in the night.

Much more here...