The US Supreme Court appears likely to rule in favour of a black Mississippi death row inmate who has been put on trial six times for a 1996 quadruple murder and has accused the lead prosecutor of repeatedly removing black jurors to help secure a conviction.
The Flowers case marked the latest dispute to reach the justices over allegations of racial bias in an American criminal justice system in which blacks and other minorities are disproportionately represented in prison populations.
Some prosecutors, including in southern states like Mississippi, have been accused over the decades of trying to ensure predominately white juries for trials of black defendants.
Under a 1986 Supreme Court precedent, people cannot be excluded from serving on a jury because of their race based on the right to a fair trial under the US Constitution.
The high court heard an appeal by Flowers of his 2010 conviction in his sixth trial on charges of murdering four people at the Tardy Furniture store where he previously worked in the small central Mississippi city of Winona.
His lawyers have accused long-serving Montgomery County District Attorney Doug Evans of engaging in a pattern of removing black jurors that indicates an unlawful discriminatory motive.
"Throughout the half-dozen trials, the prosecution's persistent exclusion of African Americans from jury service has been an enduring point of contention," they wrote in the court papers.
Under long-standing law, both prosecutors and defense lawyers can dismiss - or "strike" - a certain number of prospective jurors during the selection process without giving a reason.
Evans has given other reasons for striking jurors but Flowers' lawyers have said those simply mask his real racial motives.
Flowers appealed to the Supreme Court after the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2017 upheld his most recent conviction and death sentence.
Prosecutors said Flowers was upset with the store owner for firing him and withholding his paycheck to cover the cost of batteries he had damaged before his termination.
They have said Flowers returned to the store and committed the killings. With the exception of one, all the victims were white. Each were shot in the head at close range.
His lawyers have said no physical or forensic evidence links Flowers to the crime.
Evidence presented by prosecutors included witness testimony, a gun stolen from a Flowers relative on the morning of the crime and an empty shoe box in his home, which would have matched the size and style of a shoe print left at the crime scene.
We're back this morning with the first of four new podcast episodes.
— In the Dark (@InTheDarkAPM) March 19, 2019
It's a preview of oral arguments, and we examine the allegations at the heart of the appeal: that Doug Evans tried to keep African-Americans off the jury in Curtis Flowers' sixth trial. https://t.co/LAg6PqrC8l
The Flowers case has been in the public spotlight following the 2018 airing of ‘In the Dark’ – a podcast produced by American Public Media Reports, which retells the story of Curtis Flower’s struggle to prove his innocence and the subsequent failure to do so, despite winning his appeals, as District Attorney Doug Evans repeatedly retries his case.
Season 2 of ‘In the Dark’, which became hugely popular following the show’s Peabody Award-winning first season, topped the list of 2018 best podcasts in the US.
