Madeleine Baran:
This is In the Dark. I'm Madeleine Baran. I'm coming to you today with some big news. The Mississippi Attorney General has just announced that she is dropping the case against Curtis Flowers. After 24 years and six trials, the case is over and Curtis is finally truly free. Curtis Flowers was just 26 when he was arrested for the murders of four people at Tardy Furniture in Winona, Mississippi. He was tried before an all-white jury and found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed and he won, but he was tried again and again, on and on, six trials total, years awaiting execution in a solitary cell on death row in Parchman Prison. We started reporting on Curtis' case about three years ago. We moved to Mississippi. All right. Let's do this. Talked to 100s of people.

Speaker 2:
Hello.

Madeleine Baran:
Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Madeleine.

Speaker 2:
Nice meeting you. [inaudible 00:01:11].

Speaker 3:
It ain't too many times when my mind is off of him. I think about him all the time.

Madeleine Baran:
Witnesses for the state told us they lied under oath.

Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:01:20] him telling me he killed some people? Hell, no. He ain't never told me that.

Madeleine Baran:
We found that the science that was used to convict Curtis really wasn't science at all.

Speaker 5:
That is absolute nonsense.

Madeleine Baran:
We identified an alternate suspect in the case. Did you commit the murders at Tardy Furniture?

Speaker 6:
Did you?

Madeleine Baran:
Dug through more than 100,000 documents. We have now scanned all trial files at all eight courthouses. And we discovered a decades-long pattern of racial discrimination and jury selection by the office of the white district attorney, Doug Evans, who prosecuted Curtis Flowers at all six of his trials.

Speaker 7:
The prosecution struck Black jurors almost four and a half times the rate at which they struck white jurors.

Madeleine Baran:
After we released our reporting, things started to change. People around the country began calling Doug Evans' office to complain about his handling of the case. Curtis received so many letters of support delivered to his prison cell, they could barely keep up with reading all of them. A local paper called on Doug Evans to remove himself from the case and the US Supreme Court took Curtis' case...

Speaker 8:
We conclude that the state did violate Batson, several factors [inaudible 00:02:30].

Madeleine Baran:
And reversed his conviction.

Speaker 8:
For all those reasons, we reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Madeleine Baran:
A few months later, a judge released Curtis on bail and Curtis walked out of jail and into the arms of his family.

Speaker 9:
I'm so excited right... I can't even think straight.

Madeleine Baran:
DA Doug Evans removed himself from the prosecution and the case went to the Mississippi Attorney General's Office and Curtis has been waiting under house arrest in an undisclosed location to find out whether he would be put on trial yet again for a seventh time. Then just a few hours ago, the Attorney General of the State of Mississippi filed a motion with the court. It said the state no longer had strong evidence against Curtis. It said, quote, "As the evidence stands today, there is no key prosecution witness that incriminates Mr. Flowers, who's alive and available and has not had multiple conflicting statements in the record." It went on to say, quote, "The only witness who offered direct evidence of guilt recanted his prior testimony admitting that he was lying when he said Mr. Flowers made a jailhouse confession to the murders." This was a reference to Odell Hallmon who told us that his testimony about Curtis' confession was all a fantasy.
"Moreover," the motion said, "The court was made aware of alternative suspects with violent criminal histories," an apparent reference to Willie James Hemphill, "As well as possible exculpatory evidence not previously considered." The motion concluded, "Based on the totality of circumstances, it's in the interest of justice that the state will not seek an unprecedented seventh trial of Mr. Flowers. And so the Attorney General of the State of Mississippi was dropping the case against Curtis Flowers." Almost immediately, Judge Joey Loper, the same judge who presided over Curtis's last two trials and who granted Curtis bail back in December, issued an order granting the motion. And just like that, the case against Curtis Flowers was over.
We tried to reach the attorney general, Lynn Fitch, but she declined to comment. A spokesperson from her office sent us a statement. It said, quote, "As a general rule, General Fitch intends to refrain from seeking media coverage on individual prosecutions in an effort to desensationalize this very serious process for the individuals involved. The families here deserve that respect."
Curtis and his family decided not to talk to reporters today. In his statement, his family said they wanted today to be a private day for the family to reconnect. But earlier today, a group of defense attorneys, who've worked on Curtis's case over the years, gathered a Zoom call to talk to our reporter, Parker Yesko, and our producer, Samara Freemark.

Parker Yesko:
How are you guys all feeling today?

Henderson Hill:
Socially distanced jubilee.

Madeleine Baran:
There was Henderson Hill, an experienced death penalty litigator.

Henderson Hill:
It's a wonderful feeling. It's delayed, but it's sweet.

Madeleine Baran:
There was attorney Sherry Johnson who argued Curtis's case before the US Supreme Court.

Sherry Johnson:
Good day.

Madeleine Baran:
And there was Tucker Carrington who heads the Mississippi Innocence Project, lawyer, Rob McDuff, from the Mississippi Center for Justice, who took over after the Supreme Court reversed Curtis' most recent conviction, and there was Jonathan Abram, an attorney from a big firm, Hogan Lovells.

Speaker 13:
We're all just on cloud nine.

Madeleine Baran:
This afternoon when the legal team found out that the attorney general had filed the motion dropping the charges, they all got together and called up Curtis.

Speaker 14:
Well, we talked some shit about the Dallas Cowboys first, and then we got around to business.

Madeleine Baran:
That business was telling Curtis that he was finally free.

Speaker 13:
Our paralegal, Ashley Johnson, who has just been an incredible force of nature through all of this, was the one that we all agreed would be the person to tell Curtis. And so that's what happened. And there were tears and it was one of the great moments.

Rob McDuff:
Just had a wonderful time talking and he was very excited and then we arranged to have the monitor person call him and tell him how to take it off.

Madeleine Baran:
Curtis had been under house arrest for months now. He'd been wearing an ankle monitor and now today he could finally take it off.

Speaker 13:
He took it off while we were on the call all by himself because the monitor guy was able to send a signal to the ankle monitor to tell it, "Okay. Let him take it off," and then he pushed something or something and it came off. So while we're on the call, the ankle monitor was removed.

Parker Yesko:
So what does the news today mean for Curtis's case? Is it over? Is it really actually over?

Rob McDuff:
They cannot prosecute him again. He's off of bond. His ankle monitor is off. He is totally out from under these charges after 23 and a half years.

Madeleine Baran:
Two words stood out in Judge Loper's order dismissing the case.

Rob McDuff:
Case was dismissed with prejudice.

Madeleine Baran:
With prejudice. To dismiss a case with prejudice basically means that it cannot be tried again, that the case is actually finally over.

Rob McDuff:
If it's dismissed without prejudice, the prosecutor can let it go for two or three years and then bring it back, but here we don't have to worry about Doug Evans coming back behind the attorney general and charging Curtis again. That can't happen. We don't have to worry about a new attorney general coming into office and say, "Oh, I want to go charge Curtis Flowers." That can't happen. So that's exactly what it means.

Parker Yesko:
Did you see this as any sort of statement about Evans and the way this has been prosecuted before?

Speaker 13:
Yeah. I don't think any of us want to go there.

Speaker 14:
Yeah. I think the order speaks for itself.

Speaker 13:
But I think there is one thing to say, and that is when responsible prosecutors took over the case, you see the result.

Madeleine Baran:
That result for Curtis and his lawyers was a good one. "A joyful one," one of the lawyers called it. And Curtis's lawyer, Rob McDuff, said that journalism played a big role in that result.

Rob McDuff:
The dismissal of the charges today is the result in part of the work that you all have done with In the Dark because of the evidence you found during your very detailed investigation and have really raised the profile of the injustice in this case has helped to provide the conditions that led to where we are today.

Madeleine Baran:
And yet, Curtis had still lost almost half of his life. 23 years, gone, spent behind bars.

Speaker 14:
It's hard to wrap your mind around the years, but I'll just say this. I teach my class the other night. I've got a couple students in my class who weren't born yet when Curtis was locked up.

Sherry Johnson:
But if you look at the evidence as presented to the jury, he should not have been convicted. So I mean, I feel very happy at this result. I feel happy that a neutral examination led to the right result. But he shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place. And there are more of those people out there too.

Speaker 14:
And you're all's data that you collected on all the felony cases through the tenure that Doug Evans. I mean, I would venture to guess that every single one of those cases has a colorable issue of race bias. What about all those people? The work that Hogan Lovells did with all the other capital cases of Doug Evans, what about all those cases? And we won this case, but what this case did was not solve the problem really, but draw back the curtain on what is a systemic issue.

Speaker 13:
I look back on this case and I think of all of the events that had to flip positively for this outcome to happen. The Supreme Court had to grant cert. That was by no means a sure thing. And so many other things had to flip positively for this outcome to occur. And to me, that alone says everything you need to know about all the other cases because everything doesn't always flip the way it ought to flip in the criminal justice system.

Parker Yesko:
What are you guys going to do for the rest of your evening?

Rob McDuff:
Going to sign off Zoom.

Speaker 14:
Yeah. Move on to the next case.

Madeleine Baran:
"Move on to the next case." There is one more step that could happen. When someone's been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, they can sometimes get money from the state to compensate them. In Mississippi, the state will pay $50,000 for each year wrongfully spent behind bars. It caps out at a half million dollars, but this money isn't guaranteed. To get it, Curtis would need to go through a separate process and that could take a while, like months or even longer. As for Curtis himself, although he decided not to talk to reporters today, he did release a written statement.
In that statement, Curtis said, quote, "Today I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for 23 years. I want to say that I believe there are other men, men that I met on the row, whose cases deserve to be heard and considered. I've been asked if I ever thought this day would come. I've been blessed with a family that never gave up on me. And with them by my side, I knew it would. With their love, staying in the word of God, with the determination of my legal team and the countless letters and words from my supporters, the day I've prayed for is here at last." Curtis thanked his lawyers, his supporters and his family. He mentioned his mother, Lola Flowers. And it made me think of this time a few years ago when I was sitting with Mrs. Flowers in her living room in Winona. She said something that stuck with me ever since.

Lola Flowers:
Yes. Hello. I said, "Now, God going to work this thing out. I do believe." Might not be what we want to, but He going to do. Curtis coming out.

Madeleine Baran:
The way Mrs. Flowers saw it, no matter how many trials it took, no matter how many court appearances, how many days in prison, how many long phone calls, eventually, one day her son Curtis would be free. Mrs. Flowers didn't live to see this moment. She died two years ago. In his statement today, Curtis said, quote, "Mom, I hope you're taking a minute to smile down on me."
As far as we know, there are no plans to reopen the investigation of the murders at Tardy Furniture. Earlier today, we made one more call. We called the man who'd spent almost his entire career prosecuting the case against Curtis Flowers, district attorney, Doug Evans, the prosecutor who intentionally struck Black people from the juries, who relied on junk science, who offered deals to jailhouse informants, who then lied on the stand, the prosecutor whose misconduct over six trials is the reason the case against Curtis Flowers dragged on for so long, the man, who even now, even after the Supreme Court found he violated the Constitution, is still the top prosecutor in this part of Mississippi. We called Doug Evans at his office in Grenada. An employee picked up the phone and told us, "Doug Evans was not available."
In the Dark is reported and produced by me, Madeleine Baran, managing producer, Samara Freemark, producer, Natalie Jablonski, associate producer, Raymond Tungakar, and reporter, Parker Yesko. This series was edited by Catherine Winter. The editor-in-chief of APM Reports is Chris Worthington. This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. Original music for this series by Gary Meister. Photography for this series by Bend Up. Additional help on this episode from Lauren Humpert.