Curtis Flowers Bio, Wiki, Age, Family, Wife, Case Dropped and Trials
Curtis Flowers Biography and Wikipedia
Curtis Giovanni Flowers, an American man, gained significant attention for being tried for murder six times in the state of Mississippi. The alleged crime took place on July 16, 1996, involving the shooting deaths of four individuals inside the Tardy Furniture store located in Winona, which serves as the seat of Montgomery County. While four of the trials resulted in convictions, all of them were later overturned on appeal.
Curtis Giovanni Flowers faced a series of trials and legal challenges surrounding his involvement in the 1996 murders at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. In the first trial held in 1997, Flowers was convicted of the aggravated murder and robbery of the store owner. However, both the initial verdict and a subsequent conviction for the murder of one of the store employees were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Another trial was conducted for all four murders, resulting in a conviction, but this too was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court due to racial bias in jury selection by the prosecutor. It was found that a disproportionate number of black jurors had been excluded. Flowers faced a mistrial in his fourth and fifth trials.
In the sixth trial, held on June 18, 2010, a majority-white jury convicted Flowers of the 1996 murders and recommended the death penalty. However, in June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his case, along with two others, should be remanded to lower courts for review of evidence related to racial bias in jury selection.
Throughout this process, Flowers spent over 20 years on death row at the Parchman division of Mississippi State Penitentiary. The legal proceedings surrounding his case have raised significant concerns about the fairness of the trials and the presence of racial bias in the jury selection process.
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After the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Curtis Flowers' conviction, the case once again reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 7-2 decision in June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions in the landmark case Flowers v. Mississippi. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Flowers was released from prison in December 2019, marking his first release since his initial arrest. He was released on a $250,000 bond while awaiting a decision from the state on whether they would attempt a seventh trial.
On September 4, 2020, the District Attorney announced that they would not pursue a seventh trial against Flowers and dropped all charges against him. This decision brought an end to the legal proceedings surrounding his case.
The Curtis Flowers case gained significant attention and scrutiny, and it served as the subject of the critically acclaimed podcast "In the Dark" produced by American Public Media in 2018. The podcast extensively examined the evidence, legal challenges, and issues of racial bias surrounding Flowers' case.
Curtis Flowers's Age and Birthday
Curtis Giovanni Flowers, the individual who faced six murder trials, was born on May 29, 1970, in Winona, Mississippi, in the United States. As of the year 2023, Flowers is 53 years old.
Curtis Flowers Height and Body Measurements
Curtis Flowers's Family, Parents, and Siblings
Curtis is the son of Archie Flowers and Lola Flowers. Unfortunately, there is limited information available about his siblings or other relatives at this time. If any additional details become available, they will be updated accordingly.
Curtis Flowers's Wife and Children
Flowers has kept a low profile regarding his personal life, and there is currently no known information about his marital status, spouse, or children. If any updates regarding his personal life become available, they will be provided as soon as possible.
Curtis Flowers Case
On the morning of July 16, 1996, a retired employee of Tardy Furniture made a distressing discovery when entering the store. The bodies of four individuals were found, identified as Bertha Tardy, the owner of the store, and three employees named Robert Golden, Carmen Rigby, and Derrick Stewart, who was just 16 years old at the time of his murder.
Curtis Flowers became a suspect in the case after investigators learned that he had been terminated from his job at the store 13 days prior to the tragic event. Additionally, it was discovered that Flowers owed Bertha Tardy $30, which was a cash advance on his paycheck.
Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Flowers near the front of the store on the morning of the shootings. While no gun was recovered, ballistics analysis revealed that the bullets recovered from the crime scene matched the caliber of a firearm that had been reported stolen from Flowers' uncle's car on the same day as the murders. As a result, Flowers was charged with murder in connection with the shooting deaths of the four victims.
Curtis Flowers Trials and State Court Appeals
State District Attorney Doug Evans was responsible for indicting Curtis Flowers in each of the six trials. The first three trials, held in 1997, 1999, and 2004, resulted in convictions, but all were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court. The first two were overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, while the third trial was overturned because Evans was found to have engaged in racial bias during the jury selection process.
The fourth and fifth trials, held in 2007 and 2008, ended in hung juries, meaning the jurors could not reach a unanimous decision. In the sixth trial in 2010, Flowers was convicted and an appeal was unsuccessful.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court referred the case back to the Mississippi Supreme Court to review the issue of racial discrimination in jury selection. The state court affirmed the original conviction the following year. However, in 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Flowers' conviction due to Evans' efforts to exclude people of color from the jury.
Flowers was released on bail while awaiting the state's decision on whether to pursue another trial. Evans recused himself from the case, and it was transferred to the State Attorney General. In 2020, it was announced that charges against Flowers would be dropped.
Curtis Flowers First U.S. Supreme Court Ruling and In the Dark
In June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review Flowers' case along with two other capital cases to examine potential racial bias in jury selection by the prosecution. In November 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court reaffirmed its previous decision and upheld Flowers' conviction and death sentence from the sixth trial.
The Flowers case gained significant attention in 2018 when it was featured in the second season of the American Public Media podcast In the Dark. Journalist Madeleine Baran hosted and reported on the case, conducting in-depth investigative reporting. The podcast raised serious doubts about the validity of the case against Flowers, highlighting retracted confessions by multiple witnesses, potential misconduct by the prosecutor, and the mysterious disappearance of a gun, which could have been the murder weapon, after it was handed over to the police. The podcast shed light on the potential flaws and inconsistencies in the evidence and raised questions about Flowers' guilt.
Curtis Flowers Second U.S. Supreme Court ruling
New evidence uncovered during the investigation conducted by the In the Dark podcast led to efforts by Curtis Flowers' lawyers to overturn his conviction through a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The petition sought a review of the Mississippi Supreme Court's application of Batson v. Kentucky, a case that prohibits racial discrimination in jury selection. On November 2, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the writ of certiorari to review Flowers' case.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 20, 2019, and amicus briefs were filed on behalf of Flowers by various organizations, including the Magnolia Bar Association, the Mississippi Centre for Justice, and Innocence Project New Orleans. On June 21, 2019, in a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Flowers' sixth conviction in Flowers v. Mississippi.
The Court's decision was based on the argument that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, had violated Batson by systematically striking almost all prospective black jurors in Flowers' sixth trial. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, highlighted the state's persistent efforts to exclude black individuals from the jury, suggesting a clear intent to try Flowers before as few black jurors as possible, and ideally, an all-white jury. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented from the Court's decision.
The Washington Post described Evans' prosecutorial pursuit as potentially unparalleled, noting that in the six trials, he had used 41 of his 42 challenges to exclude African Americans from the juries.
Curtis Flowers Ongoing case
After being held at various correctional facilities in Mississippi, including Parchman, Grenada County Jail, and Winston-Chickasaw Regional Correctional Facility, Curtis Flowers awaited decisions from prosecutors and the local court regarding any future prosecution.
Flowers' legal team filed petitions requesting the dismissal of charges or, alternatively, bail and the removal of Doug Evans, the prosecutor, from the case. They cited numerous findings of prosecutorial misconduct throughout the proceedings.
Evans faced a federal lawsuit filed by the local NAACP chapter on behalf of multiple members of Flowers' jury pool, alleging systematic racial discrimination in jury selection. The lawsuit sought class-action status to include all eligible black residents in Evans' district.
On December 16, 2019, Judge Loper granted Flowers bail, requiring a deposit of 10 percent of the $250,000 bail amount. Flowers was confined to his residence and had to wear an ankle monitor.
Judge Loper's decision took into account the recantation of testimony by several key prosecution witnesses and the uncovering of potentially exculpatory evidence and alternative suspects, which weakened the prosecution's case compared to previous trials.
During the hearing, Judge Loper criticized Evans for failing to take action in Flowers' case despite court orders over the previous four months. Evans, the prosecutor in all six of Flowers' trials, recused himself in January 2020, requesting the Mississippi Attorney General's office to take over the prosecution.
The state ultimately decided not to pursue a seventh trial against Flowers and officially dropped all charges on September 4, 2020. The attorney general's office cited the challenges posed by past court records being considered unusable and the lack of new living witnesses, making it nearly impossible to secure a conviction against Flowers at this point.
After 6 Trials, Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Curtis Flowers
Curtis Flowers, a Black man who spent around 23 years in prison, had the charges against him dropped after a lengthy legal battle. The case involved six trials marred by prosecutor misconduct, overturned convictions, and a thorough investigation by a podcast. Over a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Flowers' latest conviction, prosecutors have decided to cease pursuing the case.
The state attorney general's motion to dismiss was approved by Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Loper. Prosecutors stated in their filing that there were no credible witnesses available for a seventh trial, effectively ending the decades-long pursuit of Flowers for the 1996 murders in Winona, Mississippi.
Deputy Attorney General Mary Helen Wall wrote in the court filing, "As the evidence stands today, there is no key prosecution witness that incriminates Mr. Flowers who is alive and available and has not had multiple, conflicting statements in the record."
Flowers, now 50 years old, expressed his relief at the dismissal in a statement released through his attorneys. He thanked his unwavering family and stated, "I've been asked if I ever 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."
Flowers was accused of the shooting deaths of Bertha Tardy, the owner of Tardy Furniture, and employees Carmen Rigby, Robert Golden, and Derrick Stewart. Despite his innocence claims and no prior criminal record, local prosecutor Doug Evans relentlessly pursued Flowers as the prime suspect, leading to six trials. Four ended in convictions, two in mistrials.
However, each conviction was subsequently overturned by higher courts. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June of the previous year declared Flowers' conviction and death sentence invalid. The court highlighted the Mississippi Supreme Court's findings of prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias in jury selection during the previous convictions.
Flowers' trials had disproportionately few Black jurors. The first trial had an all-white jury, while the second, third, and sixth trials included only one Black juror. The two trials with multiple Black jurors resulted in hung juries. The city where Flowers was tried has a larger Black population than White.
Flowers was granted bail in December of the previous year, and the state attorney general assumed responsibility for the case, taking over from Evans.
The case gained national attention due to the investigative reporting by the podcast "In the Dark." The podcast's extensive investigation involved interviewing numerous individuals, examining thousands of documents, and uncovering significant issues in the pursuit of a conviction. Witnesses were found to have lied or been pressured by law enforcement, and an undisclosed alternate suspect was discovered. Additionally, the ballistics evidence relied on flawed science.
The attorney general's filing aligned with the podcast's findings regarding the state's star witness, a jailhouse informant who claimed that Flowers had confessed to him. The witness admitted to fabricating the confession during the podcast's investigation.
In summary, Flowers' arduous legal journey, marred by misconduct and overturned convictions, concluded with the charges against him being dropped due to a lack of credible witnesses and the podcast's thorough investigative reporting.
Source: npr.org
