Curtis Flowers Exonerated in Mississippi After Attorney General Drops All Charges

After six tri­als marred by pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and racial prej­u­dice, draw­ing a scathing rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court, for­mer Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers (pic­tured with the ankle mon­i­tor that had kept him under house arrest) has been exonerated.

On September 4, 2020, near­ly 23 years after he was first ques­tion­ably con­vict­ed of a quadru­ple mur­der in Winona, Mississippi, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office dropped all charges against Flowers and a Montgomery County tri­al judge dis­missed his indict­ment with prej­u­dice. The rul­ing means that local Mississippi pros­e­cu­tors may nev­er try Flowers a sev­enth time for the murders.

“Today, I am final­ly free from the injus­tice that left me locked in a box for near­ly 23 years,” Flowers said in a state­ment. ​“I’ve been asked if I ever thought this day would come. … With a fam­i­ly that nev­er gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would.”

Flowers is the fifth per­son sen­tenced to death in Mississippi to have been exon­er­at­ed since 1973 and the 171^st death-row exon­er­a­tion nation­wide that DPIC has doc­u­ment­ed dur­ing that period. 

Flowers, who is African American, was tried for cap­i­tal mur­der six times by the same white pros­e­cu­tor, Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney Doug Evans. Four of the tri­als result­ed in con­vic­tions and death sen­tences imposed by all-white or near­ly all-white juries. Each con­vic­tion was over­turned for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The two oth­er tri­als end­ed in hung juries, with every white juror vot­ing to con­vict and every Black juror vot­ing to acquit. The only direct evi­dence of guilt came from a jail­house infor­mant who claimed that Flowers had con­fessed to the mur­ders. In a taped inter­view with the American Public Media pod­cast In the Dark, that wit­ness admit­ted to hav­ing fab­ri­cat­ed the confession.

In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed Flowers’ con­vic­tion in his sixth tri­al, hold­ing that Evans had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly removed Black prospec­tive jurors from serv­ing in the case because of their race. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Evans’ ​“relent­less, deter­mined effort to rid the jury of black indi­vid­u­als strong­ly sug­gests that the State want­ed to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as pos­si­ble, and ide­al­ly before an all-white jury.” An APM inves­ti­ga­tion of dis­cre­tionary jury strikes by Fifth Circuit pros­e­cu­tors dur­ing Evans’ tenure found that the office exclud­ed African Americans at near­ly 4.5 times the rate at which they struck white jurors.

Following the Supreme Court’s deci­sion, Evans indi­cat­ed that he intend­ed to try Flowers a sev­enth time. Two civ­il rights firms filed a class action suit against Evans in November 2019 seek­ing an injunc­tion to bar his office from dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly exclud­ing black jurors from jury ser­vice because of their race. On December 16, 2019, the tri­al court released Flowers on bail while Evans decid­ed whether to pur­sue anoth­er tri­al. In January 2020, claim­ing ​“confiden[ce] in both the inves­ti­ga­tion and the jury ver­dicts,” Evans vol­un­tar­i­ly with­drew from the case, turn­ing it over to new­ly elect­ed Attorney General Lynn Fitch. 

In a three-page motion filed September 4, Fitch asked that the charges against Flowers be dis­missed. ​“As the evi­dence stands today,” she wrote, ​“there is no key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness that incrim­i­nates Mr. Flowers who is alive and avail­able and has not had mul­ti­ple, con­flict­ing state­ments in the record.” Fitch not­ed that ​“the only wit­ness who offered direct evi­dence of guilt recant­ed his pri­or tes­ti­mo­ny, admit­ting that he was lying when he said Mr. Flowers made a jail­house con­fes­sion to the mur­ders.” In addi­tion, the motion point­ed out that ​“anoth­er wit­ness who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Flowers … was lat­er con­vict­ed of mul­ti­ple counts of fed­er­al income tax fraud,” oth­er evi­dence point­ed to ​“alter­na­tive sus­pects with vio­lent crim­i­nal his­to­ries,” and still oth­er ​“pos­si­ble excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence” exist­ed that had not pre­vi­ous­ly been presented. 

Fitch moved to dis­miss the indict­ment with prej­u­dice, say­ing ​“based on the total­i­ty of cir­cum­stances, it is in the inter­est of jus­tice that the State will not seek an unprece­dent­ed sev­enth tri­al of Mr. Flowers.” 

In a half-page order issued the same day, Judge Joseph Loper dis­missed the charges. “[I]n light of all the facts and cir­cum­stances relat­ing to this case and the record devel­oped in it,” he wrote, ​“the inter­ests of jus­tice require that the State’s motion to dis­miss this case with prej­u­dice be GRANTED.”

Rob McDuff, a lawyer from the Mississippi Center for Justice on Flowers’ defense team said ​“This pros­e­cu­tion was flawed from the begin­ning and was taint­ed through­out by racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. It should nev­er have occurred and last­ed far too long, but we are glad it is finally over.”

Tucker Carrington, who has rep­re­sent­ed Flowers on behalf of the Mississippi Innocence Project, praised the Attorney General’s action. ​“Once Attorney General Fitch was giv­en respon­si­bil­i­ty for this case, her office did the right thing by con­duct­ing a thor­ough review of the evi­dence, includ­ing the sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence of inno­cence, cor­rect­ly con­clud­ing that this case should come to an end,” he said.

Flowers learned of the rul­ing in a phone call with his lawyers, dur­ing which he received a code from law enforce­ment to unlock the ankle bracelet that had con­fined him to house arrest. More than two decades after hav­ing first been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, he was finally free.