Damn! DAMN!

That's some awesome, awesome news!

Cory Maye will not sleep on death row tonight. Nor, for that matter, any night for the foreseeable future.

At the conclusion of the hearing today, Judge Michael Eubanks ruled on two of the defense team's battery of arguments. Both rulings from the bench tonight dealt with Rhonda Cooper's competence. Judge Eubanks found that Ms. Cooper was competent for the trial, but incompetent for the sentencing.

I have my quarrels with that ruling, obviously. But in the short run, it means that Cory will at the very least get a new sentencing trial. And until and if that happens, he will no longer be on death row -- and for the moment is no longer condemned to die.

I guess we can all go to sleep tonight feeling that one iota better about our criminal justice system. It might have conducted a midnight raid on an innocent man's home based on the testimonies of a loonified bigot and put the said innocent man in death row for shooting at whom he thought was an intruder in self defence, but at least we didn't end up killing him!