Curtis Flowers, 50, holds up his disassembled ankle monitor after Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch dropped the case against him Sept. 5, 2020. Flowers was tried six times in the murder of four people at a furniture store in Winona. Flowers’ last conviction was overturned because the U.S. Supreme Court found that prosecutor Doug Evans racially discriminated during jury selection. Photo courtesy of the family.
Lici Beveridge from the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reports that Curtis Flowers, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years, will receive compensation from the state of $500,000. He was convicted for the shooting of the store manager and three employees at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona in 1996, where he had also been employed at the time. Despite no motive and little evidence against him, and evidence that another individual was responsible for this crime, Flowers was convicted.
According to Minnesota state, an individual who is wrongfully convicted will receive $50,000 in compensation for each year they were imprisoned. Flowers was convicted and given the death sentence in 1997. This case went to trial six times, five of which were prosecuted by District Attorney Doug Evans. The first three trials ended in convictions but the fourth and fifth trial ended in a mistrial. In 2010, during the sixth trial, Flowers was found guilty. However this verdict was overturned in 2019 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2019, Doug Evans was sued by the NAACP in federal court for alleged discriminatory acts. These charges were dismissed but are going through an appeals process. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Evans had made efforts to prevent black people serving as jurors. In 2020, the Attorney General Lynn Fitch confirmed that Flowers’ case would not be tried for the seventh time and he was a free man now. The legal team that represented Curtis Flowers will receive $50,000 in compensation too.
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