The latest on the Curtis Flowers case
On June 21, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Curtis Flowers' conviction for the 1996 murders of four people at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.
Though Flowers' conviction and death sentence have been vacated, he's not free. The indictments charging him with capital murder — handed down years ago by a Montgomery County grand jury — still stand. Whether Flowers goes to trial a seventh time, and how quickly it happens, depends on a number of factors, including the strength of the state's case against him and District Attorney Doug Evans' willingness to drop the charges or negotiate a plea deal. Below, we'll post developments as they happen.
Curtis Flowers remains on death row at Parchman prison. His transfer into pretrial detention at a local jail is expected soon. Flowers is seeking release on bail and the dismissal of all charges against him. His motions will be heard by a judge in the weeks ahead.
Flowers' defense files motions for bail, dismissal
Curtis Flowers' case finally makes it back down to the Montgomery County trial court where it began. His lawyer, Rob McDuff, immediately files two motions — one requesting bail, the other that the case be dismissed — that vividly preview how he plans to attack the state's case against his client.
"There has never been any physical or forensic evidence connecting Flowers to the crime; the motive and methods ascribed to Flowers by the prosecution are objectively improbable; the witnesses relied upon to make up the circumstantial case for guilt have by turns been contradictory, unbelievable, or non-probative; and the prosecution has relentlessly excluded African-Americans from jury service."
The motions are likely to come before the same judge who presided over Flowers' fifth and sixth trials, Mississippi Circuit Judge Joey Loper. A hearing is expected in the fall. Read.Evans slams SCOTUS decision in local paper
In an interview with The Winona Times, District Attorney Doug Evans bluntly dismisses the high court's 7-2 decision overturning Curtis Flowers' conviction.
"I think it was a ridiculous ruling," Evans said. "They basically said there was nothing wrong with the case and reversed it anyway."
This is Evans' most revealing public statement since Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in June that Evans violated the U.S. Constitution with his "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals" in Flowers' trials. Read.Mississippi Supreme Court vacates Flowers' conviction and death sentence
On orders from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Mississippi Supreme Court formally reverses Flowers' 2010 conviction. The action, largely a formality, sends the case back to the trial court in Montgomery County, where it will ultimately be retried, pled out or dismissed. Read.
SCOTUS sends case back to Mississippi
After holding onto the case for several weeks following its decision (as required by its rules), the U.S. Supreme Court sends Flowers' case back down to Mississippi, with orders that the state Supreme Court enter the reversal. Read.
Clemmie Fleming becomes the second major prosecution witness to publicly recant
Clemmie Fleming, long the only living person to put Flowers on the same side of town as the murders, tells In the Dark that she's never known what day she saw Flowers running near Tardy Furniture. Fleming, who testified in all six of Flowers' trials, became the prosecution's most important witness after Odell Hallmon recanted to In the Dark last year. Read.
Flowers' legal team announces new lawyer
Rob McDuff, a Mississippi civil rights attorney, takes over the helm of Flowers' defense. McDuff, who's won several cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, says that the charges against Flowers should be dismissed without another trial.
Doug Evans still in good standing
Adam Kilgore, general counsel for the Mississippi Bar, which handles attorney discipline in the state, tells In the Dark that he can't confirm or deny the existence of any bar complaints against District Attorney Doug Evans. "Presently, he is active and in good standing. But matters can change. If the committee ends up reviewing a bar complaint, they will look at it and make an informed decision," Kilgore says. "A case just being reversed does not automatically mean that an attorney has committed an ethics violation." Evans is running unopposed for re-election in 2019.
Doug Evans speaks
District Attorney Doug Evans tells his hometown newspaper, The Grenada Star, that Curtis Flowers "will have to be retried." Read.
Willie James Hemphill's alibi falls apart
In the Dark reporters confront Hemphill, an early suspect in the Tardy Furniture murders, inside an Indianapolis courthouse. When they tell Hemphill that the alibi he offered them for the morning of July 16, 1996, didn't check out, Hemphill becomes hostile and abruptly ends the interview. Read.
Mississippi AG doesn't want the case
Attorney General Jim Hood tells reporters that he won't take over the Flowers case. "I don't have the authority to go take a case away from a DA," Hood says, according to the Associated Press. Hood says that he doesn't want DA Doug Evans to offer him the case, either, because Hood doesn't have enough prosecutors in his office to handle it (though one of his prosecutors did argue the case before the U.S. Supreme Court in March). Hood is running for governor this fall. Read.
Curtis Flowers wins appeal at U.S. Supreme Court
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Curtis Flowers' 2010 conviction and death sentence. The court finds that District Attorney Doug Evans intentionally struck black prospective jurors at Flowers' sixth trial, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. In the court's majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh writes that "the State's relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury." Read.