His Name Is 'Etched Into Supreme Court Jurisprudence'

Curtis Flowers, a Black man who spent more than 22 years in prison and was on death row in Mississippi before the US Supreme Court threw out his conviction and death sentence, has died. He was 56. Flowers' family confirmed that he died Wednesday at his home in Mississippi, attorney Rob McDuff told the AP Thursday. No cause of death was given, said McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team. Flowers was 26 when he was arrested several months after the July 1996 shooting deaths of four people inside a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store.

At the time, prosecutors described him as a disgruntled former employee who sought revenge against the store's owner because she fired him and withheld most of his pay to cover the cost of merchandise he damaged. Nearly $300 was found missing after the killings. Flowers was tried in the killings six times. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the high court's 7-2 decision in 2019 that the removal of Black prospective jurors deprived Flowers of a fair trial. During the sixth trial in 2010, Flowers was sentenced to death. There were 11 white jurors and one Black juror who considered the case after District Attorney Doug Evans struck five Black prospective jurors. Kavanaugh noted that Evans had removed 41 of the 42 prospective Black jurors over the six trials.

Flowers remained in prison for six months after the Supreme Court ruling because he was still under indictment. He finally was released in December 2019 after a judge set bond. Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in September 2020. The legal team that represented Flowers for more than two decades said Thursday in a statement that Flowers' name is "etched into US Supreme Court jurisprudence—about what it means to fight for a fair trial free from racial bias in the selection of jurors. And also for that, but for so many other reasons, his name is etched into our memories, too—professional and personal. We will miss him."