Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of March 1, 2021

NEWS (3/​2/​21) — Mississippi: Mississippi will pay death-row exoneree Curtis Flowers $500,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for the 23 years in prison after fac­ing six tri­als and four wrong­ful con­vic­tions for a 1996 quadru­ple mur­der in a furniture store. 

A state court judge accept­ed the par­ties’ joint stip­u­la­tion that Flowers was enti­tled to the half-mil­lion dol­lar statu­to­ry max­i­mum com­pen­sa­tion per­mit­ted under Mississippi law. Mississippi’s com­pen­sa­tion statute pro­vides for com­pen­sa­tion of $50,000 per year of wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion, capped at $500,000, to be paid out in annu­al pay­ments of $50,000 each.

District Attorney Doug Evans per­son­al­ly pros­e­cut­ed Flowers six times for the mur­ders. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in the first three tri­als, each of which was over­turned because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The fourth and fifth tri­als end­ed in mis­tri­als. Evans tried Flowers a sixth time in 2010, result­ing in anoth­er con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned that con­vic­tion as well, find­ing that Evans had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly struck Black jurors from serv­ing in the case because of their race.