We want at least 10,000 signatures on the Cory Maye petition

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

We want at least 10,000 useable signatures on the Cory Maye petition. Right now we’re about 5% of the way toward our goal. When I say “useable”, I mean those signatures with some kind of address after the name. The more full the address, the more validity the signature has. When we get 10,000 useable signatures, we will print the petition out and mail it to governor of Mississippi and to the major newspapers. If those in charge of Cory Maye’s legal defense have no objection (from a tactical standpoint, you might say), we will also be buying a large ad in a national newspaper, possibly the Washington Post. The signatures that are only names (no addresses) will be filtered out.

Everyone should include their email addresses. We will not show the email address to the public, but an email address does allow us verify your signature later (and make sure you are really you).

Someone asked me if I understood that this petition was going to have zero influence on the issue of whether or not Cory Maye gets a retrial. Yes, that is understood. The petition is for what happens after the motion of retrial is settled. Our thinking was two part: if Maye was granted a new trial, he’d need funding and so to that end we would want to bring more attention to the case; if he was not granted a new trial, his only hope at that point would depend on all of us bringing sufficient public pressure to bear on those who have the power to decide his fate.

I am not clear how the issue of funding is effected by the fact that he will now be represented pro-bono by the law firm of Covington and Burling. Perhaps on that front we are in luck. However, if the case is lost, the need for public pressure remains. If the courts decide, once again, to kill Cory Maye, then we must mobilize a campaign of public pressure at least on par with what was seen in the case of Tookie Williams. The petition can be a part of that overall campaign.

Please sign the petition now.

And tell everyone you know about it.