Mississippi Judge Frees Curtis Flowers on Bail After Six Trials and 23 Years in Jail

A Mississippi tri­al judge has released Curtis Flowers on $250,000 bail, while pros­e­cu­tors decide whether to attempt to try him a sev­enth time for a quadru­ple mur­der he has long main­tained he did not com­mit. Flowers (pic­tured right, with defense co-coun­sel Henderson Hill) was freed on December 16, 2019, after an anony­mous donor post­ed his bond. He had spent the last 23 years in jail, most of it on death row.

In July 1996, four employ­ees of a white-owned fur­ni­ture store in Winona, Mississippi were mur­dered. Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney Doug Evans tried Flowers for the mur­der of one of the vic­tims in October 1997. The all-white jury sen­tenced Flowers — who is African American — to death. While Flowers’ appeal of his con­vic­tion in the first tri­al was pend­ing, Evans tried him a sec­ond time in March 1999 for the mur­der of a sec­ond vic­tim. Just before that tri­al, Flowers’ par­ents’ house burned down. Shortly after­wards, 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.” This time, a jury of 11 white jurors and one black juror con­vict­ed Flowers and sen­tenced him to death.

Citing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, the Mississippi Supreme Court over­turned both of Flowers’ con­vic­tions, revers­ing his first con­vic­tion in December 2000 and his sec­ond in 2003. Evans pro­ceed­ed to try Flowers a third time in February 2004, again with a jury com­posed of 11 white jurors and one black juror. Flowers was again con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court then over­turned his con­vic­tion a third time, this time cit­ing Evans’ dis­crim­i­na­to­ry use of jury strikes against African Americans. 

Jurors dead­locked in Flowers’ fourth and fifth tri­als in November 2007 and September 2008, split along racial lines. Evans per­son­al­ly pros­e­cut­ed both tri­als. The sev­en white jurors in the fourth tri­al and the nine white jurors in the fifth tri­al vot­ed for death. The five black jurors in the fourth tri­al and three black jurors in the fifth tri­al vot­ed for life. Only one black juror served on the sixth jury in 2010 — again pros­e­cut­ed by Evans — and Flowers was sen­tenced to death a fourth time in that trial.

While it was work­ing its way through the appeals process, the Flowers case became the sub­ject of an American Public Media pod­cast, APM Reports’ In the Dark. The pod­cast uncov­ered new evi­dence ques­tion­ing Flowers’ guilt, includ­ing evi­dence point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect and a taped admis­sion from jail­house infor­mant Odell Hallmon — the state’s star wit­ness who had tes­ti­fied that Flowers had con­fessed to the mur­ders. In a por­tion of the pod­cast that Flowers’ cur­rent lawyer Rob McDuff played at the bail hear­ing, Hallman said: ​“He ain’t nev­er tell me that. That was a lie. … Everything was all make-believe on my part.” 

APM also con­duct­ed a study of pros­e­cu­tors’ exer­cise of dis­cre­tionary jury strikes in 225 tri­als between 1992 and 2017 dur­ing Evans’ tenure as Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney. The data from more than 6,700 jurors called for jury ser­vice in the cir­cuit court showed that Evans’ pros­e­cu­tors exclud­ed African Americans from jury ser­vice at near­ly 4½ times the rate at which they struck white jurors.

On June 21, 2019, a 7 – 2 major­i­ty of the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned Flowers’ con­vic­tion, again for Evans’ racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry selec­tion prac­tices. Evans’ ​“relent­less, deter­mined effort to rid the jury of black indi­vid­u­als,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote, ​“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.” 

In November 2019, two civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions filed a class action law­suit against Evans in fed­er­al court seek­ing an injunc­tion to end to what they described as his office’s ​“pol­i­cy, cus­tom, and usage of racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion.” Flowers’ cur­rent tri­al lawyers moved to dis­qual­i­fy Evans from fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in the case and to bar a sev­enth tri­al alto­geth­er. Evans’ office has not filed a response to the defense motions and Evans did not appear at the bail hearing.

Following Flowers’ release, McDuff, of the Mississippi Center for Justice, said the defense would ​“con­tin­ue to pur­sue jus­tice in this long and cost­ly case …. At the begin­ning of the new year, we will move for­ward with our efforts to obtain a dis­missal of the charges .… [T]here is no need to con­tin­ue wast­ing tax­pay­er mon­ey on the mis­guid­ed pros­e­cu­tion,” he said.