Death-Row Exoneree Curtis Flowers Sues Mississippi Prosecutor Who Prosecuted Him Six Times

Former Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers (pic­tured), who was exon­er­at­ed in 2020, is suing the offi­cials whose mis­con­duct led to his arrest and repeat­ed wrong­ful con­vic­tion. Flowers was tried six times and spent 23 years wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed for a quadru­ple mur­der in a white-owned fur­ni­ture store in Winona, Mississippi. In a com­plaint filed September 3, 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Flowers alleges that his tri­al pros­e­cu­tor, an inves­ti­ga­tor in the prosecutor’s office, and two police offi­cers involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion engaged in per­va­sive mis­con­duct that vio­lat­ed his Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as the Mississippi Constitution and sev­er­al Mississippi state laws.

Flowers suit names as defen­dants Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney Doug Evans, who per­son­al­ly pros­e­cut­ed Flowers six times; John Johnson, a for­mer inves­ti­ga­tor for Evans’ office; and Jack Matthews and Wayne Miller, two Mississippi Highway Patrol offi­cers involved in his case. The suit asserts that the case against Flowers ​“nev­er made sense” and that lack­ing ​“any sol­id evi­dence against Mr. Flowers, Defendants engaged in repeat­ed mis­con­duct to fab­ri­cate a case that nev­er should have been brought.”

Over the course of two decades and six tri­als, Evans sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly removed Black prospec­tive jurors from Flowers’ case, repeat­ed­ly try­ing Flowers, who is Black, before all-white or near­ly all-white juries. Flowers was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death four times, but each con­vic­tion was over­turned because of mis­con­duct by Evans. Two of Flowers’ tri­als end­ed in hung juries, with every white juror vot­ing to con­vict and every Black juror vot­ing to acquit. An inves­ti­ga­tion by APM Reports found that Evans’ office exclud­ed African Americans at near­ly 4.5 times the rate at which they removed white jurors.

Just before Flowers’ sec­ond tri­al, his par­ents’ house burned down and his moth­er was told of a threat made by a white res­i­dent that, ​“If they let that n — — - go, anoth­er house is going to burn.” Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned Flowers’ con­vic­tion in his sixth tri­al based on Evans’ race dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office took over the case from Evans, and charges were dis­missed.

“Curtis Flowers can nev­er get back the 23 years of his life that he spent in prison when he should have been home with his fam­i­ly and friends,” Kaitlyn Golden, one of the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Flowers, said in a state­ment. ​“The law allows inno­cent peo­ple to file law­suits seek­ing to hold state offi­cials account­able for mis­con­duct lead­ing to wrong­ful impris­on­ment. With this case, we hope to do just that, and to seek some redress for Curtis Flowers for the hor­rors he endured over more than two decades behind bars.”

From the out­set, Flowers was an unlike­ly sus­pect. The crime was com­plex and the evi­dence indi­cat­ed that the per­pe­tra­tor had firearms pro­fi­cien­cy and like­ly a crim­i­nal back­ground. Flowers had no crim­i­nal record, no firearms expe­ri­ence, and no plau­si­ble motive. He was ques­tioned and even­tu­al­ly arrest­ed sim­ply because had once spent three and a half days work­ing at the fur­ni­ture store where the crime took place.

The law­suit alleges that inves­ti­ga­tors com­mit­ted exten­sive mis­con­duct in build­ing a case against Flowers, includ­ing ​“pres­sur­ing wit­ness­es to fab­ri­cate claims about see­ing Mr. Flowers in par­tic­u­lar loca­tions on the day of the mur­ders, using an undu­ly sug­ges­tive pho­to line-up to per­suade one wit­ness to incrim­i­nate Mr. Flowers, fail­ing to thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gate oth­er sus­pects who were much more like­ly to have com­mit­ted these mur­ders than Curtis Flowers (and con­ceal­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion that was done), fail­ing to send a firearm that may have been the mur­der weapon to the Mississippi crime lab for fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, and per­suad­ing a career crim­i­nal to claim false­ly that Mr. Flowers con­fessed in prison.” 

As Flowers’ appeals moved for­ward, APM Reports’ In the Dark pod­cast uncov­ered evi­dence of his inno­cence, includ­ing facts point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect and a taped admis­sion from the state’s star wit­ness, jail­house infor­mant Odell Hallmon, that he had lied when he tes­ti­fied that Flowers had con­fessed to the mur­ders. ​“Despite Doug Evans’ con­stant claim over the years that there were no sus­pects oth­er than Curtis Flowers,” the law­suit says, ​“there were mul­ti­ple alter­na­tive sus­pects, includ­ing peo­ple with his­to­ries of vio­lence, mur­der, and commercial burglaries.” 

In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed Flowers’ con­vic­tion in his sixth tri­al, find­ing 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.” After Evans indi­cat­ed he intend­ed to try Flowers a sev­enth time, two civ­il rights firms sought an injunc­tion to bar his office from engag­ing in dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion. Flowers’ lawyers also moved to recuse Evans from the case, lead­ing him to vol­un­tar­i­ly with­draw and turn the case over to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch. In September 2020, Fitch dropped charges against Flowers, writ­ing, ​“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.”