Mississippi Goddamn: Flowers v Mississippi’s Cheap Racial Justice

Abstract

Flowers v Mississippi is a Supreme Court case about a man who was tried six times for the same crimes. The trials took place over a span of twenty-one years. In four of the trials, there was a conviction, but appellate courts reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct. In the other two trials, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial. Curtis Flowers was charged with murdering four people—Robert Golden, Carmen Rigby, Bertha Tardy, and Derrick Stewart—in a small town in Mississippi. Mr. Flowers is African American. Doug Evans, the district attorney who was the lead prosecutor in all six trials, is white. Winona, Mississippi, where the killings occurred, is roughly 53 percent black and 46 percent white.