Curtis Flowers, freed after six trials for 1996 Mississippi murders, dies at 56

Left · 2Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who spent more than 22 years in prison, much of it on death row, died Wednesday at his home in Mississippi. He was 56. 1 2 Left · 2McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team, said no cause of death was given. CBS News said it had reached out to McDuff and the coroner. 1 2 Left · 2Flowers was arrested in connection with the July 1996 shooting deaths of four people at Tardy Furniture in Winona, Mississippi: the owner, a bookkeeper, a delivery man and a 16-year-old. CBS says he was arrested in Texas in January 1997 and had no prior criminal history. The Independent says he was 26 at the time of arrest. 2 1

Left · 2Prosecutors described him as a disgruntled former employee who wanted revenge on the store's owner for firing him and withholding most of his pay to cover damaged merchandise. CBS notes that the murder weapon was never found and no DNA or fingerprints linked him to the crime. 1 2 Left · 2District Attorney Doug Evans tried Flowers six times. Three convictions were overturned, including one for improper exclusion of African Americans from the jury, and two trials ended without unanimous verdicts. Flowers was sentenced to death after the sixth trial in 2010, when 11 white jurors and one Black juror decided the case after Evans struck five Black prospective jurors. 1 2 Left · 1CBS reports that American Public Media's podcast "In the Dark" investigated the case, and witnesses, including one who said Flowers had confessed, recanted. The podcast's analysis of court data found that Evans excluded Black people from juries at a disproportionate rate. Across all trials, 61 of 72 jurors were white, and all 61 voted to convict. 2

Left · 1In 2019 the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that removing Black prospective jurors deprived Flowers of a fair trial. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the record showed a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals" and noted that Evans had removed 41 of 42 prospective Black jurors over the six trials. 1 Left · 2Flowers stayed in jail for six months more because he was still under indictment, and was released in December 2019 after a judge set bond. Mississippi dropped the charges in September 2020. He told CBS News in 2021 that on release "I felt like I was floating." 1 2 Left · 1In 2021 a judge ordered Mississippi to pay Flowers $500,000 for wrongful imprisonment, the maximum under state law. Flowers also sued Evans and three investigators, alleging misconduct including pressuring witnesses to fabricate claims. Evans retired in 2023 after more than 30 years as district attorney. 1

Left · 2His legal team said it was "privileged to have called him a client" and later a friend, and that his name is "etched into U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence" on fair trials free from racial bias in jury selection. McDuff had earlier called the case "unprecedented in the history of the American legal system." 1 2