Holy Crap, Part 8 million

Remember the case of Cory Maye that I linked to a few weeks ago? That dude in Mississippi who’s sitting on death row in a particularly murky case (as in, cops broke down his door possibly without announcing themselves and possibly without a legit warrant, and the first cop to barge into Maye’s place got shot)?

The Agitator’s done a great job of pursuing the case, and informing readers about the ever-stranger circumstances of the case. Now the strangeness has gone overboard.

Evidently, the public defender who was representing Maye on his appeal has been fired from his position as town public defender, almost certainly in reponse to his pursuit of Maye’s appeal. Read Balko’s latest on the case, just to get one more take on how messed up the justice system can get.

The lawyer, Bob Evans, is still representing Maye. If you want to contribute (not tax free) to a legal fund to try to get Maye off death row, this is the place to go.

George Will is peeved

A few days ago, Radley Balko (aka The Agitator) quoted a recent George Will column excoriating the attempt at moralizing via tax breaks in the post-Katrina recovery package (I goofed on that subject in December.

With today’s column, it looks like Balko underestimated how pissed off Will is at the GOP.

Here’s a snippet:

Until the Bush administration, with its incontinent spending, unleashed an especially conscienceless Republican control of both political branches, conservatives pretended to believe in limited government. The past five years, during which the number of registered lobbyists more than doubled, have proved that, for some Republicans, conservative virtue was merely the absence of opportunity for vice.

I’m sure Will would characterize himself more as a “true conservative” than as a libertarian, but politics makes strange bedfellows.

Read more.