Skip to main content
Sunday, November 15, 2026Nov 15
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

Court demands new look at race of jurors in 3 convictions

This March 25, 2015, image provided by the Mississippi Department of Corrections shows Curtis Giovanni Flowers of Mississippi, a death row inmate, jailed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, June 20, 2016, that lower courts in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi must re-examine three convictions for evidence of racial prejudice in jury selection, including for Curtis Giovanni Flowers.
This March 25, 2015, image provided by the Mississippi Department of Corrections shows Curtis Giovanni Flowers of Mississippi, a death row inmate, jailed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, June 20, 2016, that lower courts in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi must re-examine three convictions for evidence of racial prejudice in jury selection, including for Curtis Giovanni Flowers.

By Associated Press 3 min read

JACKSON, Miss. – The U.S. Supreme Court says lower courts in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi must re-examine three convictions for evidence of racial prejudice in jury selection.

The court ruled Monday in the cases of Christopher Floyd of Alabama, Jabari Williams of Louisiana and Curtis Giovanni Flowers of Mississippi.

The brief decisions followed the court’s May decision to overturn the conviction and death sentence of a Georgia man because prosecutors violated the Constitution by excluding African-Americans from the all-white jury that determined his fate.

The 7-1 ruling in favor of death row inmate Timothy Tyrone Foster came in a case in which defense lawyers obtained strikingly frank notes from prosecutors detailing efforts to keep African-Americans off Foster’s jury. The decision broke no new ground in efforts to fight racial discrimination in jury selection but underscored the importance of a 30-year-old high court ruling that took aim at the exclusion of minorities from juries.

Flowers has been convicted of capital murder four times in the fatal shootings of a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store owner and three employees in 1996. The first three convictions were overturned, and two other trials ended in hung juries. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in 2014 on an automatic appeal after the fourth conviction in 2010, rejecting arguments regarding racial prejudice in jury selection.