Curtis Flowers, Man Cleared by Supreme Court, Dies at 56
Flowers spent more than two decades on death row in Mississippi before his conviction was overturned due to racial bias in jury selection.
Curtis Flowers, a Black man whose conviction and death sentence in Mississippi were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, has died. He was 56.
Flowers died Wednesday at his home in Mississippi, his family confirmed. Attorney Rob McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team, told The Associated Press on Thursday that no cause of death was provided.
Flowers was arrested in July 1996, months after the shooting deaths of four people at a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. Prosecutors alleged he was a disgruntled former employee seeking revenge after being fired and having most of his pay withheld to cover damaged merchandise. Nearly $300 was reported missing after the killings.
He was tried six times for the murders. In 2019, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the Supreme Court that the removal of Black prospective jurors during the sixth trial denied Flowers a fair trial. In that 2010 trial, Flowers was sentenced to death by a jury composed of 11 white jurors and one Black juror. This followed the district attorney's decision to strike five Black potential jurors.
Kavanaugh's majority opinion noted that District Attorney Doug Evans had removed 41 of 42 Black prospective jurors across the six trials, indicating a persistent effort to seat an all-white jury. Previous convictions had been overturned for various reasons, including one instance where African Americans were improperly excluded from the jury, and another where the judge admonished Evans for striking a juror based on race.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling, Flowers remained in prison for six months while still under indictment before being released on bond in December 2019. Mississippi officially dropped all charges against him in September 2020.
"Today, I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for nearly twenty-three years," Flowers said in a statement after his release. "I’ve been asked if I thought this day would come. I have been blessed with a family that never gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would."
His legal team, which represented him for over two decades, stated that they felt honored to have represented him and later considered him a friend. They remembered him sharing his "light" whether on death row, at home, singing in church, or fishing.
In 2021, Flowers filed a lawsuit against Evans and three investigators, alleging misconduct such as pressuring witnesses to fabricate testimony and disregarding alternative suspects. Earlier that year, a judge ordered Mississippi to pay Flowers $500,000 for his wrongful imprisonment, the maximum amount allowed under state law.
Doug Evans retired in 2023 after more than 30 years as district attorney, his jury selection tactics having faced scrutiny for years. Flowers' legal team noted that his name is now "etched into U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence" concerning the fight for a fair trial free from racial bias in jury selection.