FLOWERS v. MISSISSIPPI, No. 17 – 9572

Cert. granted: November 2, 2018
Argument: March 20, 2019
Decided: June 21, 2019

In a 7 – 2 deci­sion, the Supreme Court over­turned the con­vic­tion of Curtis Giovanni Flowers, a Mississippi death row pris­on­er who has been tried six times for a noto­ri­ous 1996 quadru­ple mur­der in Winona, Mississippi. Three of the first five tri­als end­ed in con­vic­tions that were over­turned on appeal and two tri­als result­ed in hung juries. The lead pros­e­cu­tor for all six tri­als was Doug Evans, the District Attorney in Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District. 

In the sixth tri­al, the defense argued that the pros­e­cu­tor vio­lat­ed Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), by dis­crim­i­nat­ing in jury selec­tion on the basis of race. On direct appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied relief on Flowers’ Batson claim, affirm­ing Flowers’ con­vic­tion and sen­tence. In 2016, the United States Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari, vacat­ed and remand­ed the case ​“for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion in light of Foster v. Chatman, 136 S.Ct. 1737 (2016).” On remand, the Mississippi Supreme Court again affirmed, with three jus­tices dis­sent­ing. Flowers v. Mississippi, 240 So.3d 1082, 1124 (Miss. 2018). In 2018, the Supreme Court again grant­ed review of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s deci­sion on the ques­tion of ​“Whether the Mississippi Supreme Court erred in how it applied Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), in this case.” 

On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court over­turned Flowers’ con­vic­tion, con­clud­ing that Evans uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ed in jury selec­tion dur­ing Flowers’ sixth tri­al. In doing so, the Supreme Court relied in part upon evi­dence of Evans’ mis­con­duct and exclu­sion of black jurors in Flowers’ pre­vi­ous tri­als. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, reviewed the long his­to­ry of race dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion and the Supreme Court’s cas­es address­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion inher­ent in this dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tice. The opin­ion also focused on the his­to­ry of Evans’ per­sis­tent exclu­sion of black jurors over the course of Flowers’ six tri­als. Kavanaugh wrote, ​“The num­bers speak loud­ly. Over the course of the first four tri­als, there were 36 black prospec­tive jurors against whom the State could have exer­cised a peremp­to­ry strike. The State tried to strike all 36.” Kavanaugh not­ed that Evans was found to have dis­crim­i­nat­ed in jury selec­tion in two of the ear­li­er tri­als. In the sixth tri­al, Evans accept­ed the first qual­i­fied black poten­tial juror and then struck the five remain­ing African Americans in the jury pool. 

In find­ing a pat­tern of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, Justice Kavanaugh not­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of Evans’ dis­parate ques­tion­ing of poten­tial jurors. ​“The State asked the five black prospec­tive jurors who were struck a total of 145 ques­tions. By con­trast, the State asked the 11 seat­ed white jurors a total of 12 ques­tions.” Evans did not ask fol­low-up ques­tions to white jurors on sub­ject areas that received close atten­tion in ques­tion­ing black jurors. ​“The dif­fer­ence in the State’s approach­es to black and white prospec­tive jurors was stark.”

Finally, the Court found that Evans treat­ed sim­i­lar poten­tial jurors dif­fer­ent­ly, strik­ing a black juror with ties to Flowers’ fam­i­ly and defense wit­ness­es while accept­ing white jurors with the same char­ac­ter­is­tics. Justice Kavanaugh con­clud­ed that ​“all of the rel­e­vant facts and cir­cum­stances tak­en togeth­er estab­lish that the tri­al court at Flowers’ sixth tri­al com­mit­ted clear error in con­clud­ing that the State’s peremp­to­ry strike of [a black prospec­tive juror] was not moti­vat­ed in sub­stan­tial part by dis­crim­i­na­to­ry intent.” As a result, the Court over­turned Flowers’ conviction.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a con­cur­ring opin­ion empha­siz­ing the extra­or­di­nary nature of the case giv­en Evans’ egre­gious his­to­ry of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dis­sent joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch in which he chal­lenged the majority’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the record. In a por­tion of the dis­sent not joined by Justice Gorsuch, Justice Thomas chal­lenged the Court’s cas­es about juror dis­crim­i­na­tion and claimed that crim­i­nal defen­dants should not be enti­tled to relief when pros­e­cu­tors dis­crim­i­nate against jurors on the basis of race.

A study of jury selec­tion in Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District over the 26-year peri­od from 1992 to 2017 found that Doug Evans’ office struck prospec­tive black jurors at near­ly 4½ times the rate it struck white prospec­tive jurors. (Doug Evans has been the District Attorney for the Fifth Circuit Court District for this entire time peri­od.) The study, con­duct­ed by American Public Media, in asso­ci­a­tion with its pod­cast series, In the Dark, looked at 225 tri­als and the strikes or accep­tances of more than 6,700 jurors.

You can read case-relat­ed doc­u­ments on the Supreme Court web­site.