Term: 2018
Docket: 17-9572
Flowers v. Mississippi
- Pro
17-9572 FLOWERS V. MISSISSIPPI DECISION BELOW: 240 So.3d 1082 GRANTED LIMITED TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: WHETHER THE MISSISSIPPI SUPREME COURT ERRED IN HOW IT APPLIED BATSON v. KENTUCKY, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) IN THIS CASE. CERT. GRANTED 11/2/2018 QUESTION PRESENTED: Petitioner Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same off in Mississippi state court. Through the first four trials, prosecutor Doug Evans relentlessly removed as many qualified African American jurors as he could. He struck all ten African Americans who came up for consideration during the first two trials, and he used all twenty-six of his allotted strikes against African Americans at the third and fourth trials. (The fifth jury hung on guilt-or- innocence and strike information is not in the available record). Along the way, Evans was twice adjudicated to have violated Batson v. Kentucky - once by the trial judge during the second trial, and once by the Mississippi Supreme Court after the third trial. At the sixth trial Evans accepted the first qualified African American, then struck the remaining five. When Flowers challenged those strikes on direct appeal, a divided Mississippi Supreme Court reviewed Evans' proffered explanations for the strikes deferentially and without taking into account his extensive record of discrimination in this case, and affirmed. Flowers then sought review here, asking: "Whether a prosecutor's history of adjudicated purposeful race discrimination must be considered when assessing the credibility of his proffered explanations for peremptory strikes against minority prospective jurors?" This Court responded by granting certiorari, vacating the Mississippi Supreme Court's judgment, and remanding "for further consideration in light of Foster v. Chatman, 136 S. Ct. 1737 (2016)." Flowers v. Mississippi, 136 S. Ct. 2157 (2016). On remand, a divided Mississippi Supreme Court again affirmed. Over three dissents, the state court majority emphasized deference to the trial court, and insisted both that the "[t] he prior adjudications of the violation of Batson do not undermine Evans' race neutral reasons," and that "the historical evidence of past discrimination ... does not alter our analysis ...'' Flowers v. Mississippi, 240 So.3d 1082, 1124 (Miss. 2018). The state court majority then repeated, nearly word-for-word, its previous, history-blind evaluation of Evans' strikes. Because a prosecutor's personal history of verified, adjudicated discrimination is highly probative of both his propensity to discriminate and his willingness to mask that discrimination with false explanations at Batson's third step, the barely altered question presented is: Whether a prosecutor's history of adjudicated purposeful race discrimination may be dismissed as irrelevant when assessing the credibility of his proffered explanations for peremptory strikes against minority prospective jurors? LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 2010-DP-01348-SCT
The Flowers v. Mississippi case in 2018 revolved around Curtis Flowers, a black man who was tried six times for the same crime by the same prosecutor. The U.S Supreme Court ruled that there was racial discrimination during jury selection in his trials. The court held that the prosecutor's repeated use of peremptory challenges to exclude black individuals from juries violated Flower’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction equal protection under law. This decision overturned Mr.Flowers' conviction and death sentence for murder.
In the dissenting opinion for Flowers v. Mississippi, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch in part, argued that the court's decision was not based on an impartial review of the record but rather a desire to boost its racial justice credentials. He contended that Curtis Flowers' case did not meet the standard for granting Supreme Court review and suggested it had been chosen because it involved potential racial bias in jury selection. Furthermore, he disagreed with his colleagues' interpretation of Batson v. Kentucky (1986), which prohibits prosecutors from using peremptory challenges to strike jurors based on race. According to him, Batson was wrongly decided as it distorts original understanding of equal protection clause and intrudes into state sovereignty over criminal procedure rules.
