Curtis Flowers

Curtis Giovanni Flowers is an African-American man who has been tried six times in the state of Mississippi, United States, for murder in the July 16, 1996, shooting deaths of four people inside Tardy Furniture store in downtown Winona. On June 18, 2010, his sixth trial jury convicted him of the 1996 murders of an ex-employer and three workers. Two earlier trials ended as mistrials; three trials ended as convictions that were later overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Case

Flowers was accused of shooting the owner, Bertha Tardy, and three workers, at Tardy Furniture, a Winona furniture store from which he had been recently fired, on July 16, 1996.

On the morning of July 16, 1996, a retired employee of Tardy Furniture, entered the store only to find the bodies of four victims. Curtis Flowers became an immediate suspect after learning that he had been fired from the store a few days earlier than the murders. He also owed Bertha Tardy $30 for a cash advance on his paycheck. In addition to the suspected personal problems with the Tardy family and Flowers, many eyewitnesses saw Flowers near the front of the store on the morning of the shootings. Eyewitnesses also saw Flowers sitting on the hood of his uncle's car the morning of the murders; the same car from which the gun matching the shootings was stolen.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in Montgomery County in 1997 of the murder of the store owner. Evidence submitted for the prosecution stated that bloody footprints found at the crime scene were a 10½, the size worn by Flowers, and that they were specifically Fila Grant Hill, which, according to witnesses, Flowers was wearing. In addition, projectiles found at the crime scene were most likely from a .380 caliber weapon, matching a gun stolen from Flowers' uncle on the morning of the murders. Forensic evidence also showed that there were gunshot particles on Flowers' clothes and hands. $287 was found missing from the till, and $255 was found at the home of Flowers' girlfriend. According to two of Flowers' cell-mates, he admitted to them that he had stolen the money and committed the murders. Flowers continues to deny said admittance.

Flowers denied the murders, stating that he had not admitted any crimes to his cell-mates, that he was wearing Nike shoes, that the clothes he was wearing did not match the description given by witnesses, and that he had been handling fireworks the day before the murders.

Trials

In each of the six trials except the fourth, the prosecution sought the death penalty.

The jury in the first trial, for the murder of store owner Bertha Tardy, found Flowers guilty. In overturning that verdict, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that evidence presented by the state was prejudicial because it went beyond that necessary to prove the murder of Tardy alone. In addition, the prosecutor was held to have asked questions "not in good faith" and without basis in fact. Both reasons were sufficient to overturn the verdict, with Flowers remanded for re-trial. The court stated that "what may be harmless error in a case with less at stake becomes reversible error when the penalty is death", and that Flowers' Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated in "the prosecutor repeatedly mentioning the other killings".

A second trial, for the murder of employee Derrick Stewart at the Tardy store, was moved to Harrison County due to the difficulties of getting a fair jury in Montgomery County, resulted in a sentence of death. This verdict was likewise overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which held that the court had improperly allowed evidence regarding crimes not on trial to be admitted, and that other errors were made.

A third trial, for all four murders, which concluded on 12 February 2004, again resulted in the death sentence. This was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court as the state's peremptory challenges were held to be racially motivated. During the selection process, the state challenged African-American jurors with its first seven strikes, which resulted in a Batson challenge by the defense. Following its submission of non-racial grounds for its challenges, the state used its five remaining challenges to strike African-American jurors. The state also used its three alternate juror strikes on African Americans. The final jury consisted of two African Americans, but one of these excused himself as he was not impartial. (The county is 45% African-American.)

The state Supreme Court stated that there was disparate treatment of black compared with white jurors on issues such as the jurors' connections with the defendants and the jurors' willingness to use the death penalty. In addition, although the court held in many cases that the state had presented race-neutral reasons to strike, that the challenge process had become "an exercise in finding race neutral reasons to justify racially motivated strikes."

A fourth trial in 2007, in which the prosecution did not seek the death penalty, ended in a mistrial, with the jury split 7-5 in favor of conviction, along racial lines.

The fifth trial, conducted with 9 white and 3 black jurors, concluded in 2008 in a mistrial after the sole juror opposed to conviction, African-American James Bibbs, was accused by the trial judge of perjury for allegedly trying to taint the jury pool by suggesting to other jurors that evidence was planted. The case against Bibbs was dropped through lack of evidence. A second juror, an alternate, was also charged with perjury for lying during jury selection when she said she did not know Flowers.

A jury for a sixth trial was convened in Winona, Mississippi on June 10, 2010, of eleven white jurors and one black juror. Although Montgomery County is half black, most black potential jurors excused themselves, for connections to Flowers and his family, or for opposition to the death penalty. The jury found Flowers guilty, following 30 minutes of deliberation, of four counts of capital murder. After deliberating for approximately 90 minutes during the penalty phase, the jury returned a death sentence.