Curtis Flowers, Mississippi man wrongfully convicted after being tried for the same killings 6 times, dies at 56
Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who was wrongfully convicted multiple times when he was tried six times for the same crime by the same prosecutor, has died. He was 56.
No cause of death was given, said McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team. CBS News has reached out to the coroner.
Flowers briefly worked at the furniture store that summer, but he was let go after he stopped showing up after only three days. Police questioned him after the murders, but didn't arrest him at the time. Flowers later moved to Texas to live with his sister, and he was arrested there in January 1997. He had no prior criminal history.
He told "60 Minutes" in 2021 that the first three convictions against Flowers were overturned "because of the prosecutor's misrepresentation of the evidence to the jury and because of his discrimination in the selection of the jury."
The murder weapon was never found, and there was no DNA or fingerprints linking Flowers to the crime.
His conviction was appealed and overturned. But he was tried five more times for the same crime by the same prosecutor. He had three more convictions overturned on appeal, in addition to two mistrials.
Then reporters at American Public Media's podcast "In the Dark" looked into the case. Their investigation led witnesses, including one who said Flowers had confessed, to recant their stories.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Evans and the state of Mississippi had violated Flowers' constitutional rights and overturned his conviction yet again. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there was a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals." Six months later, Flowers was released on bail, leaving jail for the first time in 23 years.
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- Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who was wrongfully convicted multiple times when he was tried six times for the same crime by the same prosecutor, has died. He was 56.
- No cause of death was given, said McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team. CBS News has reached out to the coroner.
- Flowers briefly worked at the furniture store that summer, but he was let go after he stopped showing up after only three days. Police questioned him after the murders, but didn't arrest him at the time. Flowers later moved to Texas to live
- He told "60 Minutes" in 2021 that the first three convictions against Flowers were overturned "because of the prosecutor's misrepresentation of the evidence to the jury and because of his discrimination in the selection of the jury."
- The murder weapon was never found, and there was no DNA or fingerprints linking Flowers to the crime.