July 7, 2021 • 40 mins
On July 16, 1996, the owner of Tardy Furniture Company and three employees were found shot and killed. Curtis Flowers, who previously worked at the store, was charged with four counts of capital murder. Even though no physical evidence linked him to the crime, District Attorney Doug Evans used coerced and incentivized witnesses and racially discriminatory jury selection to send Curtis to Death Row. When his conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, DA Evans continued with the same tactics for 5 more trials over the next 23 years. It took the Supreme Court, the Mississippi Attorney General's office, and a podcast called In The Dark to set him free.
Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Gunshot Residue Evidence released on October 7, 2020:
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s12e2-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-gunshot-residue-evidence
Learn more and get involved at:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/curtis-flowers
https://features.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-two/
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Curtis Flowers lived in the small town of Winona, Mississippi,
and began a job at Tardy Furniture, but while transporting
some car batteries, two of them fell off his truck
and store on er Birtha. Tardy said that the damages
might have to come out of his paycheck. After a
full day of work, Curtis decided to cut his losses
and move on. On the morning of July six, the
(00:23):
bodies of birth of Tardy and three employees were found shot.
One was still alive rushed to the hospital, but later
pronounced dead. After hearing about the allegedly disgruntled Curtis Flowers,
police used a toxic mix of a cash reward and
intimidation to extract witness statements, widely varying in detail. They
pieced together a ridiculous narrative of Curtis's whereabouts, including a
(00:47):
dubious story about a gun that his uncle had reported missing.
With this flimsy motive and even flimsier evidence, along with
racially discriminatory jury selection, Curtis Flowers was first tried and
convicted of earth attorney's murder. While that conviction was being
thrown out, he was convicted for the murder of one
of the other employees, and when the second conviction was
(01:08):
thrown out, they tried him again for all four murders.
After six trials and a trip to the Supreme Court,
this force would finally come to an end when American
Public Media made a podcast called in the Dark Shining
Up Bright Light on Curtis's case and the racist district
attorney driving it. After twenty three long years on death
row and another trip to the Supreme Court, district Attorney
(01:30):
Doug Evans finally stepped off the case. Upon review, the
Attorney General of Mississippi dropped all charges. This is wrongful
conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
(01:55):
Jason Flam. And I'm gonna throw a few numbers at
you before I introduce our guest. So, Curtis Flowers was
wrongfully convicted six times spent twenty three years on death
row for four murders that he didn't commit. Curtis Flowers,
Welcome to wrongful conviction here. So let's go back to
the beginning. You grew up in a small town in Mississippi.
(02:16):
Right is about eighty four miles north of Jackson, Mississippi,
a small town about the population of five thousand, over black.
Did you have a happy childhood? Yes, I do. Brothers, sisters, brothers.
To have four sisters, one brother, I'm the I guess
(02:37):
you'd call the middle child. So everything was pretty much fine,
I guess until what would seemed like a very minor
incident at a store that you only worked that for
a few days. I'm talking about Tardy Furniture, which should
have come and went and never been the subject of
even one little minor discussion. But nonetheless, since it was
(03:01):
the incident that started this crazy chain of events going,
can you just tell us what happened at Tardy Furniture. Well,
I went to work and tardies on one morning, and uh,
she asked me to pull around back so the business
next door could load some batteries onto the truck, and
leaving I pulled off in two of the batteries slid
(03:22):
off the truck. I got back to the store, I
told her about them. She said, we'll take them back
around there and let me see if they can replace them,
because if they can't, then you don't have to pay
for them, because she should have tied them down. And
I said, okay, So I took them back. Mr Jimmy Sanders,
who worked there, told me that we well, we'll work
it out. So I went back and told her everything
(03:42):
was good. You know, she sent me home to deliver
furniture all that day, you know, by me just starting.
You know, she even advanced me, I think it was.
And didn't go back to work at the store after that.
But I didn't fine whatever, and uh later it became
a motive, right, like this little minor incident was going
to cause you to go back and shoot four people
(04:04):
in the head. So now, unbeknownst to you, a terrible,
terrible thing happens right at Tardy Furniture. On the morning
of July n Sam Jones Jr. Retired employee of Tardy
Furniture Company, reported that the owner of Birth of Tardy,
who was fifty nine, had called him at nine am
asking him to come into the store to train a
(04:24):
couple of new employees, a guy named Derek Bobo Stewart
of sixteen and Robert Golden of forty two. Old Matt
Jones arrived an hour later and found a horror scene.
He found that Tardy, Stewart, Golden, and another employee named
Carmen Rigby, old woman had all been shot and killed.
Well one of them, sixteen year old Mr Stewart, was
(04:45):
the only one still alive, but he died in the
hospital a few days later, and supposedly two seven dollars
was missing from the cash riders. So that gives me
the chills because it's just what's the price of a life?
And then they rest in peace. So just this crazy coincidence,
smallest town like that, you know, place that you happened
to previously work and even the fact that you worked
there at one time really shouldn't have set off too
(05:07):
many alarm bells. Maybe somebody would have quickly looked into
it and ruled you out, But this wasn't just anybody, right.
What we're talking about is you ran into the crosshairs
of District Attorney Doug Evans. Then they covered this in
this fantastic podcast, which I'm sure some of our listeners
have heard called in the Dark. Thought it was brilliantly done.
(05:27):
Let me just say that one of the things that
jumps out to me from the podcast about Doug Evans
was that an analysis by a p M for the
podcast discovered that Evans and his assistant d A's over
the course of twenty six years, struck black perspective jurors
at nearly four and a half times the rate they
struck white ones. And of course we know that's one
(05:48):
of the main reasons why your conviction kept getting overturned,
because he kept excluding black jurors from the jury's which
is of course a violation of the fourteenth Amendment. This
is a guy who was elected again in November two
thousand nineteen, so he's been in there forever still the
d A. But numerous civil rights lawsuits have been filed
against him. But according to the Mississippi Bar Association, it
(06:10):
is hard to believe he's received no public sanction and
remains a lawyer in good standing. So let's let's go back.
Let's go back. Hold them. So the crime took place
on July sixteenth, nine six When did you even hear
about it? The same day? Uh, they come by the house,
wants to know if they could talk with me. They
said they heard that I used to work there and
(06:31):
maybe I could help them. You know, maybe I've seen
something and don't realize I saw it, and I so
sure I went down with him untild you know, every
time I left. You know what we talked about here today,
don't don't tell anyone else. And we just want to
know you're not a suspect. We just we just thought
maybe you could help, you know, So I said, okay,
But everyone on the street was telling me that when
(06:53):
they talked with them, they said I was a suspect.
They tested your hands for gunshot residents in my hands
to do the morning they picked me up. I wanted
to question me. They wanted to rule me out, so
he said, and uh, I agree, And I agreed to
gunshot residue tests, and they gave it to me. And
(07:15):
later they come back and say they think one particle
of gunshot residude. You know, I don't know anything about residue,
but law your argor that there are three elements to
gunshot residude. You can't have one without the other two.
And and he asked them, well, how did miss Flower
get to the police station and I got down? It
(07:37):
would have stayed true, he said, isn't it true? They
fried their weapons every morning, and and miss Flower the
ship hands with him, so he could have picked up
that particle just like that, or could have come from
a firework and we have a whole episode of our
show Wrong for Conviction Jump Science devoted to the gunshot RESIDUEATIONE.
There are literally dozens of substances that could, you know,
(07:57):
sort of fool the test, you know, and that it
all has to be independently corroborated or else it's just
junk science. Yes, and I even heard that you could
get that from just just messing with a car battery,
car battery, cigarette ash, dried urine, or also giving you
a gunshot of rather do tests and he don't have
one gloves right, and he's handling your hands, Well, he's
(08:18):
doing it just transferable. So that's the flimsiest of flimsy
evidence that you could have. Not evidence is a wrong word,
but they call the evidence. I call it bullshit. Okay,
So your prints were not found at the crime scene,
and your clothes they took your clothes, right, clothes, went
(08:38):
to the crime lab and turned up nothing. Right, So
are you a ghost? You not a ghost? At that
point maybe reasonable people could agree that they could have
started looking for the actual perpetrator, but they continued on.
Now at the scene, three footprints from size ten and
(08:59):
a half feel a gym shoes were later discovered. And
don't get me started on footprint on analysis because that's
a whole another junk science. And there was no paper
money only changed in the cash pheris again supposedly two
seven dollars was missing. A police found five shell casings
at the scene, which were from a three eighty caliber
semi automatic pistol. They also found two spent bullets to
(09:19):
bullet fragments and one live bullet. Now have you ever
owned a three d caliber semi automatic pistol? Okay, So
now entered Doyle Simpson. Doyle Simpson was your uncle. He
reported that a pistol of this same type in caliber
had been stolen from his car in the parking lot
of the Angelica Garment factory where he worked. So he
now came under suspicions. On July, Simpson took a polygraph
(09:45):
test that revealed deception when he said that he's gun
had been stolen from his car and when he said
he knew nothing about the murders. Again, we know polygraphs
are not super accurate, but they can give you some indication.
But we should not take a polygraph as just gospel,
because it's not. But according to the polygraph from the
political where he lied about where he got the gun,
(10:06):
and police later discovered that he called his brother asking
him to lie to the police as well, telling them
that he had sold the gun to Simpson, but the
brother refused. He was later found out that he did
about his where about that morning of those murder don't
claim he was at work all morning, and his own
sister said she saw his car we on eighty two,
(10:27):
she saw him drive about that morning. Well, I can
think of a couple of reasons why that could be.
One would be that he wanted to deflect this fishon
away from him because he was actually guilty. Or the
other would be that he just was trying to like
not be any part of this and so was making
up a story that he was at work just to
try to throw the police off even looking further into him.
That was my first though. So Simpson went on to
(10:47):
tell the cops that he practiced shooting this gun in
a rural spot, but a detective went to that location
and pulled the spent plug from a post, and according
to the firearms expert from the Michigan State Police, David Ballast,
testified that he determined that the bullet from the post
actually did have marking similar to the bullets recovered from
the crime scene. In August of nine, detectives led by
(11:10):
the DA investigator John Johnson questioned Mr Simpson about their findings,
but again he denied his involvement and maintained that the
gun had been stolen from the car that morning. So
despite the fact that they're like flashing arrows now pointing
towards Simpson, right, they continued to focus on you. And
now they discovered a box of size tended to half
(11:35):
Feelers shoes at your girlfriend, Connie's house. I later found
out that my girlfriend at the time, Connie head Ball
her son Marcus, a pair of Feelers shoe size tend
and a half. And then that's how they laid up
to me wearing a pair of tennant half FeelA. Do
you wear a size tenna a half feel is shoe.
Most shoes that were eleven and a half dress shoe,
(11:56):
but in gym shoes, I can't wear eleven. Well, anybody
who's ever worn a shoot that's a half to a
full size too small kind of report that is very uncomfortable.
I think it's unlikely that those were your shoes. Under
any circumstances. And I'm going to say to that feelers
were pretty stylish back in the late nineties, were okay.
(12:17):
So most of the people who were questioned later on reported,
and this will surprise exactly no one, They reported that
they were afraid of being arrested themselves unless they cooperated
with the police, and some said that rewards of up
to thirty thousand dollars were dangled in front of them
if they agreed to cooperate. So they were using the
(12:38):
carrot and the stick. So they eventually, not surprisingly, got
statements from a dozen different witnesses who said they saw
you in various locations in and around whine Known on
the morning of the crime. And based on these statements,
which were almost certainly fabricated and coerced and rewarded right
when you put the third dollar reward out, people that
(13:01):
didn't even know me knew me there, and everybody saw
me here and there. I'd have to be superman to
be in all those places around the same time and
dressed differently, right, Yeah, the winness described me wearing something different,
But based on all these crazy statements that they had
to try to piece together, and I've seen the map
that shows your movements on that morning, Like I think
(13:22):
I saw it sixty minutes or something. It's like, it's
so ridiculous. He was zigzagging all over town, according to
these in all different clothes. So they developed this crazy
theory that motivated by the anger of this loss of
this fantastic tardy furniture delivery job that you had, that
you had walked all over town, stole Simpson's gun, walked home,
(13:44):
walked back across town, shot and killed the four victims,
robbed cash register, and then just tootled your way back home.
Not a care in the world. Right now, we have
to fast forward all the way to January three teenth,
ninety seven, plane O, Texas. So you moved to Plano,
Texas right with your girlfriend, Ms. Connie Moore. What happened
(14:08):
at that time? I was working from three to eleven
and I got up to fix myself some lunch. It
was a knock at the door, and right before I
grabbed the door, I saw a movement. You know, I
have to patty your door. And you know it's what
they call runners, you know who just in case you run.
You know, they got guys set up to chase So
I opened the door and uh, he said, how are
(14:29):
you doing? I said, I'm doing okay. How are you, sir?
And uh he said I'm looking for Curtis Flowers. I
said that would be me. And before I could say
anything else, I was all against the wall talking sheet
rock moved upside, my full head being coughed, and I said, ma.
I asked why am I being arrested? He said, well,
we have a warrant for your arrist back in Mississippi
(14:51):
for four counts of captain murder. This episode is underwritten
by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
law firm. Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment
to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to the most
(15:14):
vulnerable members of our society and in support of the
public interest, including extensive work in the criminal justice area.
It took me back to the Mississippi where I was
put in jail in Lafleur County, and that's where I
(15:35):
sat until I went to trial in October of seven.
So you get charged with four accounts of capital murder.
Let's go to trial number one. Hard to believe that
you had six damn trials. I mean, that's not a
record that I think you ever wanted to hold or set.
And it was not the winning So the first trial,
they only tried you for one of the murder's birth
at Tardeys. I know your attorney had tried to combine
(15:57):
them right into one case, but of course that was denied.
Everything he tried was denied pretty much, right, So the
trial was moved to Lee County and the jury was
get ready. Oh now, from what I understand, it was
moved to Lee County because of extensive media coverage. Is
that your understanding, That's what I hear. And then they
claimed that I couldn't get a fair trial in my
(16:19):
own hometown. Keep in mind, I want on it is
what about Lee? I don't know the population there, but
the blacks they were there, they didn't get on the jury.
So it's dull in his trial tactics, you know, right,
And those are called peremptory challenges, right, which is the
technical term for defendants or lawyer's objection to a proposed juror,
(16:41):
which is made without needing to give a reason. But
it is illegal to exclude jurors because of their race.
So they had plenty of black jurors to choose from.
They just didn't choose to put any of them on
your jury exactly. So now magically the prosecution had found
two more witnesses, and we hear this in Getting Again
right on this show. These are incentivized jail house niches,
(17:04):
Frederick Veale and Maurice Hawkins, and they both testified that
you were their sellmate while you were waiting trial, and
that you admitted to committing the crime. So jail house niches,
they are the most unreliable witnesses of all because they're
all incentivized, and sometimes they lie about being incentivized while
they're lying about overhearing these magical confessions. Right. So both
(17:26):
of these two guys later recanted. We're just going to
speculate that they may have gotten whatever they were going
to get. They got with two sentenses that got rewarded
in some way. So now we get to Patricia Hallman,
who was a neighbor of yours, and she testified that
on the morning of the crime, around seven thirty a m.
She saw you going into your house in a rage.
(17:47):
I can just picture her making up this story, Okay,
And other witnesses testified to seeing you at various times
that morning, including Katherine Snow, who claimed that she saw
you leading against a car outside the factory where Simpson worked.
Clemmie Fleming testified that she got a ride home from
Roy Harris to go make a payment at Tardy Furniture,
(18:07):
but she said she didn't go in because she was
pregnant and feeling sick, so Harris drove her home. Now,
why does that matter? Because she said she saw you
running away from the store, and Harris said he also
saw someone running but only thought it was you because
Fleming said, So this this web is getting deep and deep. Bro.
So now comes Jack Matthews, an investigator for the Mississippi
(18:29):
Highway State Patrol, who testified that, based on a ledger
sheet at Tardy Furniture, two seven dollars was missing from
the cash draw. Now, they then came up with the
theory the two fifty five dollars that was found in
Connie's home your girlfriend was the same money that was
missing from the furniture store. Amazing, because no one else
had two hundred dollars. It must have been the same
(18:50):
two hundred dollars. And I thought that was so crazy.
Is she not allowed to save money. I mean, I
imagine most people in town had a little bit of
cash in their house, like they could have said, any
thing could have been twenty dollars. Oh, here's the twenty
from the store. What do you know? Amazing. I'm glad
you could laugh about it, because I'm about to cry,
(19:10):
for sometimes you have to lead keeping cry. Okay. Well,
so then there was a forensic analyst who conducted the
gunshot residue tests on your hands, which magically produced one particle,
who testified that the residue certainly had to be from
handling a gun and not anything else. So this is
a guy who didn't know what the fun he was
(19:31):
talking about, because we know that that's not true. Then
Ballish testified, remember him from before, positive that the bullets
recovered from the scene had been fired from Simpson's gun.
But when testified about the ten and a half sized
Pheela box found in her home, your girlfriend told the
story that you had said right, that she had purchased
for her son in November of and that her son
(19:53):
took them when he moved to his father's in They
could have verified that if they cared. You testified that
he had started working at Hardy and Orly July six,
What was your testimony with the batteries about? Like I
told them, she sent me around to I think it
was a task who at the time who sold her
the battery. Now my job was just pick the batteries
up and take them out into the country club and
(20:16):
they're gonna put them on the golf cards. But you know,
pulling off from a tasko to the batter sleep out
hit the pavement and one was leaking the other one.
There was nothing wrong with the better other than you know,
the edges got danged up on the concrete, and uh,
she said, we'll just take them back around there, and uh,
I'm a call and see if they give me some
type of deal on them or replace them. If they can't,
(20:38):
then you did, I have to come out of your pay.
I said, I have no problem with that, because you're right,
I suppoke to time them down no offense. But that's
a boring story, I mean, And it wasn't the only
boring part of your day because on the day of
the crime, you also testified about getting up at nine,
cooking a little breakfast and on the can of short
(20:59):
and the sister's house to get some vantages and commedian
store to buy some beer and chips. It really sounds
like a very average, average, average day. And you told
them that you hadn't committed the crime, that you hadn't
stolen the gun, and that you hadn't been running near
the store at ten am. You also told them, which
was again easily verifiable, that you wore size eleven Nike shoes,
(21:20):
and that you're shot off fireworks the day before the
murders and handled the lead car battery at working on
the truck, which you know, you're not a scientist, but
even you could figure out that these things could cause this,
you know, confusion to the testing. Right. Well, I later
found that out. You know, I'm just being honest about
what I did. And what about alibi witnesses? Do you
(21:41):
have any button at the first trial, only the keys
and and they ruled that they didn't want to bring
the keys and it because they were so young, you know,
and and and dramatize them or anything like that. But
there was a few people knew my whereabout. My cousin
even come by the house and told me what was
going on. He said, when I first heard it, all
I thought about was you I thought you got killed
down there, so I can't go here to check on you.
(22:03):
And then the jury deliberated for one whole hour, one
whole hour, one hour. I can't imagine what that conversation
was like. The all white jury convicted you in an hour,
and later that day they went ahead and imposed the
death penalty. Oh man, my my world was turned upside
down putting this whole and parchment is I cannot describe
(22:29):
partment to you. If if you didn't have someone it's
on the outside who love and support you, it was
hard to maintain in there. Some guys just taking sheets
and take it own. Live. Man. I've experienced that a
lot while I was there. It's it's a bad place.
(23:12):
So between trial went in to the jail house. Niche
Mr Veale recanted his testimony, saying that he had been
coerced by the prosecution and promised a piece of the reward.
But Hawkins stood by his testimony. But when your attorney
confronted him with the transcript of an interview he had
done during which he never talked about you. In the transcript,
(23:33):
he said that he testified quote to protect myself from
doing time and getting killed. In quote in exchange for
his testimony, very important hawkins Is cocaine charge was dropped
and he got house arrest for burglary. I'm a guess
that Mr Hawkins was a black man. Did they typically
give black men house arrest for burglary in Mississippi? They
(23:54):
do not know. I know, he answered that question. I
just wanted to hear you say okay. So while the
first conviction was being appealed, the second trial occurred and
it was moved to Harrison County. And if this second
trial was for the murder of Derek Bobo Stewart, this
time the jury was made up of eleven white jurors
and one black juror, so they managed to get one
(24:16):
on there this time, but that didn't help either. But
in this trial, Roy Harris, the guy who allegedly took
Connie Fleming, remember her by the Tardis Furniture store, He
testified again, but this time he said that he saw
a man running in downtown white On at nine am
s to the ten am and it Miss Fleming was
not with him, which was a totally different story than
(24:38):
he had told the first time. So he was trying
to have in trouble remembering his own life, so he
said that an hour later. It is hard when you
lie to remember them sometimes, so he said that an
hour later, round ten, Fleming had asked him to take
her to Tardy Furniture, but she changed her mind. They
turned around before even arriving, another change, so nothing was consistent.
So Cleming Fleming's is cousins Latarsia bliss Set and Stacy
(25:02):
Wright both testified that Fleming admitted to them that she
had not seen you running from the store. Fleming's sister,
mary Ella, also testified, saying that Fleming came to her
house on the morning of the murders and a friend
stopped over to tell them that Birtha Tardy had been killed.
Mary Ella testified that she and Fleming went to Tardy Furniture,
but that Fleming never mentioned seeing you that morning. There's
(25:24):
so many holes in this, like Swiss cheese pieces. Defense
also called your defense called Odel Holman Jr. Who was
the brother of Patricia Halmon who testified in the first trial,
and Odell Mr. Hellman Jr. Who was imprisoned on a
probation violation for aggravated assault, testified that Patricia was lying,
doing so at his suggestion in an attempt to cash
(25:44):
in on the reward. The pieces are just falling off
this puzzle. Nonetheless, you were convicted again on March thirty,
convicted of capital murder and got death penalty again. So
now we get to the reversals. In December of two thousand,
the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed your first conviction. I ordered
(26:05):
a new trial. Now, no mention was made of the
racially biased jury selection, which is odd, But they did
hold that your trial was unfair because the prosecution presented
evidence of all four murders when you were only being
tried for the murder of Miss Hardy. This led to
the jury's exposure to inflammatory and prejudicial evidence. Sure they
(26:25):
thought you were like a mass killer, right, they were
price scarity. The court also noted that evans cross examination
included questions that had no basis in fact and that
we're in poor faith. Evans also presented information that was
never in evidence. Now for the Mississippi Supreme Court to say,
it's pretty strong. So in April two thousand and three,
(26:46):
now the Mississippi Supreme Court also reversed your conviction for Mr.
Stewart's murder. The court found the same issues in the
first trial, naturally because it was the same prosecutor and
in the same dirty tricks, emphasizing that your right to
a fair trial was impossible due to the prosecution including
evidence from the other murders. But still they didn't mention
the racially biased jury selection, which would seem to be
the most obvious thing of all. But at least they
(27:07):
got it right for the well, they didn't get all
the reasons, but they got it right for one of
the reasons, or two of the reason, whatever it is.
But due to these two reversals, the prosecution now decided
they would do with your defense lawyer had asked for
all these years ago, which was to consolidate the four cases.
So trial three February two thousand and four. Now you're
being tried for all four murders. This trial was this
(27:30):
was held in Montgomery County. Now why is it? Why
are we laughing? Because that's started. They moved it out
of one owner then and brought it back to one on.
So now all of a sudden, it's okay to try
you back and wait, no, no, okay. During jury selection,
the prosecution used seven of their challenges to get rid
of black jurors. The defense objected correctly and contending that
(27:51):
it was racially motivated. Could have been a coincidence, but
sure do seem like it. The prosecution then used its
remaining five run through challenges black people as well. The
jury was ultimately composed, you guessed it, eleven white jurors
at one black jury, and the one black person that
managed to get on this jury was only selected because again,
(28:15):
I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, because you're gonna
know this before I say it, but it's because they
ran out of pensery challenges. The prosecution couldn't get rid
of the last black person, so that person was was
put on the jury, and the court ruled that this
was not racially discriminatory, that they just happened to use
all twelve of their challenges to get rid of black people.
(28:37):
Crazy coincidence, though, say, and this trial was similar to
the first two, but this time Mr Hallman Jr. Remember
Odell Hallman Jr. Testified for the prosecution. He said that
while he was in prison, you confessed to him that
you committed the murders. And it wasn't until much later
that we found out what his little deal was. Right,
(28:59):
and it's crazy you right, because everybody that watches TV
knows you can't bribe a witness, right, you go to
jail for that ship. But they don't. They can drive
all the witnesses they want, they want, and they got
better bribes than anybody the outside could possibly have. I
don't care if you go to somebody to say I
give you a million knowledge, testify the way I want
you to, they can say I'll let you out of
(29:19):
prison exactly in his case, that's what happened. Oh boy, Okay.
So February two thousand and four, the jury convicted you
of all four counts of capital murder under sentence to death.
Again part of leaders sitting here many times it even
sends the death here. You strike me as easy to
love and hard to kill. But that's just me, okay. Anyway.
(29:41):
Three years later, on February first, two thousand and seven,
here goes again, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the convictions
again and ordered a new trial. The court found that
prosecution was racially discriminatory and jury selection, this time noting
that the case was and I quote as strong as
a prima facie case of racial discriminated as we have
ever seen. That's powerful in Mississippi or anywhere. But that's crazy.
(30:05):
So okay, now they try you again, call me kookie,
But I don't think the same prosecutors should be allowed
to just keep trying the same personal true again. I
think that might be some way you want to take
a look at. But this time the jury consisted of
seven white and five black jurors. They gave me a
little December fIF thousand seven, a miss trial was declared
as the jury could not reach a verdict and get
(30:26):
ready for another shocker surprise ending seven white numbers of
the jury voted to convict and the five black members
voted to a quit. I don't even have the right
words for that. So here comes trial number five, September
two thousand eight. This time the jury was made up
of nine white and three black members. The jury ended
(30:46):
up in another mistrial, this time voting eleven to one
to convict. The one the centing person was a black person.
And comes trial number six and summer of two thousand
and ten, And this time the jury was composed of
eleven white in one black member, and they found you
guilty on all four accounts of capital murder. Again on
June eighteenth to two thousand and ten and sends you
(31:09):
to death again. And now we get to the post
post post post post post. It took me a long
time just to say that, and you had to live it.
It's conviction litigation. So you were represented now by Kireweebel
and Sherry Lynn Johnson from the Cornell Law School Death
Penalty Clinic, and they appealed your conviction and in two
(31:29):
thousand fourteen, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the convictions and
death sentence. Is it. The team sought review in the U. S.
Supreme Court and in two thousand sixteen they ordered the
Mississippi Supreme Court to review the possibly racially discriminatory jury selection.
In November two thousand seventeen, that was ruled I'm getting
(31:51):
the jails again. It was ruled by a five to
four vote that there was no discrimination. Um, the most
polite way I can think of to say, this is
what the fun they're talking about? I think I think
I did say it that way went out for her
(32:12):
that you know, it's sad, it really is. But your
team appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court again, and
this is when American Public Media a PM started their investigation,
and they did as we talked about the podcast in
the Dark, and this podcast began in May two thousand eighteen,
(32:34):
and it was a big hit, a big, big hit,
and the things they uncovered shocking. Fleming now said her
testimonies and all that the trial relies. She confessed that
quote the whole this is her quote. The whole time,
I've been telling them, I don't remember the day. The
whole time I've been telling them, I don't remember the day.
I've been confused of the day from the beginning. I
(32:56):
just didn't know how to say it. I was scared
I was going to jail. Wow, okay. Odell Hallman also recanting,
saying that everything was all make believe on his part,
and he also said that Evans dropped the drug charges
penning against him and offered him other legal assistance. Roy Harris,
(33:17):
who was the friend and driver of Clemmie Fleming, told
the podcast that police had showed him a photo of you,
and Harris said that the man he saw running away
was not you exactly. Eventually he thought he was going
to get arrested if he didn't say it was you,
So we did. Edward mccristian also recanted his testimony that
(33:38):
he was sitting on the porch at seven th eight
am when you supposedly allegedly walked past his house from
your uncle Doyle Simpson's workplace, the garment factory, where the
testimony had tied you to the alleged stolen gun. So
all those lies are now unraveling. So in June two
thousand and nineteen, the U. S. Supreme Court reversed your
(34:00):
convictions and death sentences by a vote of seven to two.
That's amazing. It ruled that the prosecution had engaged in
racially discriminatory jury selection because they had struck forty one
of the forty two black perspective jurors in the six
trials combined. So shery Lyn Johnson had made the argument
(34:20):
that led to the U. Supreme Court decision to reversee.
She argued that your case should be dismissed and not
brought to a seventh trial. Should be obvious to anybody,
as you had already spent over twenty years now on
death row, and that the evidence against you was basically advantaged.
It was not exist it never had existed, but now
it has proven that it had never existed. The watching
(34:43):
d C law firm of Hogan Lovell's, as well as
the friend of the show, the director of the Mississippi
Innocence Project, Tucker Carrington at the Mississippi Office of Post
Conviction Council, got involved, as well as attorneys Rob McDuff
we know him, and Henderson Hill. They all began preparing
for a possible retrial. Now you had the Dream Team
Avengers yea. And in December sixty nineteen you were finally
(35:07):
released to home confinement to wait for your seventh trial.
This had been almost twenty three years in prison, right right,
What do you remember about that day? I was nervous,
you know, you know I would have been so close
to home all the years and never made it, you know.
And at that time, I was like, I don't see
him giving me bail, letting me go home, you know,
(35:30):
until they decide what they want to do, where they
want to have a seventh trial or not. But we
got in the courtroom, you know, and the Gifts didn't
even show up that day. He's sending his assistant, Jorge
Lober talking. He got started in about the d A
not showing up. You know, I would expect him to
be here, you know. And and the more he talked,
(35:50):
the bet I felt. And when we talked about the
and and he said, you know, at this time, you know,
I am going to Grantville. Where'd you're going? Text is
back to Plano Plano two sisters. Yes, what was your
first meal when you got out? Oh? Man? I had
fried fish, catfish, hush public french fried coldslaw. And he
(36:13):
was a funny thing too, be called. We were in
the restroom, me, my brother in law and has been
like seven and eight other guy. So I'm standing at
the urinal and you know, relieved myself. So I get through.
I'm looking for the handle, and everybody was saying, just
just walk away. I said, no, that's rude. You don't
leak in a urinal and just walk away. I said
(36:33):
later on that could start smelling. You know, everybody, Hey,
just walk away. I stepped back and flushed itself and
I had to walk back up to it and look
at it, you know. And one of the guys in there,
the white guy, he said, I don't know where you're being,
but you've been going for a long time. As I yes,
I am, and I'm watching my hand and as my
(36:53):
brother and I walked back through the restaurant dry my
hands and everything, people would just stop at me, It's
gonna be okay, And I guess they would. They gotten
told the wives and everything about what happened in the bathroom,
you know, and people just tell me it's gonna be okay. Yes,
I mean, And it was funny and emotion at the
same time. On December sixteen, you were released to home
(37:17):
confinement waiting for the seventh trial, like we talked about.
And then in January, Evans stepped off the case and
the Attorney General's office began reviewing it. So and sure enough,
on September four, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced that
the charges were going to be dismissed, and you stated,
(37:39):
I'm now I'm gonna quote you even though you're sitting
right here in front of me. Today, I am finally
free from the injustice that left me locked in a
box for twenty three year. Oh. I felt like doing flips.
You know, big guy like me shouldn't be doing flips.
But but it's happiness. I can't even describe. You're here,
(38:01):
Jewish Loper say, you know I dismissed this case with prejudice.
M hm, yes, and you know, and at the time
the words didn't wring on me. And someone told me
he said, when he said with prejudice, that means that
they can never try you again. Yeah, that's beautiful and
it's funny because prejudice is usually a bad word. Is
(38:23):
the only instance I can think of when it's a
good word. So in the meantime, it's great to see
you out here living your best life, married, you know, traveling.
What can our listeners do to show support. I do
have a go fund me out there, so yes, we'll
have it linked in the bio. So now, Mr Flowers,
we have a segment of our show that I love
(38:45):
the most, which is called Closing Arguments. It works like this.
First of all, I again thank you for just being
you and and being here in the studio with me.
And then I turned my microphone off, kick back in
my chair and sometimes I close my eyes and just
listen to anything else you have to say. It's called
(39:05):
closing arguments, and you have the mike and you can
just talk about anything you think you want to share.
But I would first like to thank you all for
having me. Uh, and I think you also got I
really do and look forward to hanging out with you.
To all the listeners are I asked that we strive
(39:26):
a change, you know, and and make this a better place.
I think we all should get along and love one
another and not hate for no reason at all. You know. Uh,
I'm gonna lead back guy. I'm easy to get along with.
(39:46):
I would like to send shout out to all the victims,
family and and I hope one day soon did they
find the real guy. Thank you for listening to Wrongful
Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your local innocence projects
(40:10):
and go to the link in our bio to see
how you can help. I'd like to thank our production
team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warns. The music
on the show, as always, is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
(40:33):
for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Curtis Flowers lived in the small town of Winona, Mississippi,
and began a job at Tardy Furniture, but while transporting
some car batteries, two of them fell off his truck
and store on er Birtha. Tardy said that the damages
might have to come out of his paycheck. After a
full day of work, Curtis decided to cut his losses
and move on. On the morning of July six, the
(00:23):
bodies of birth of Tardy and three employees were found shot.
One was still alive rushed to the hospital, but later
pronounced dead. After hearing about the allegedly disgruntled Curtis Flowers,
police used a toxic mix of a cash reward and
intimidation to extract witness statements, widely varying in detail. They
pieced together a ridiculous narrative of Curtis's whereabouts, including a
(00:47):
dubious story about a gun that his uncle had reported missing.
With this flimsy motive and even flimsier evidence, along with
racially discriminatory jury selection, Curtis Flowers was first tried and
convicted of earth attorney's murder. While that conviction was being
thrown out, he was convicted for the murder of one
of the other employees, and when the second conviction was
(01:08):
thrown out, they tried him again for all four murders.
After six trials and a trip to the Supreme Court,
this force would finally come to an end when American
Public Media made a podcast called in the Dark Shining
Up Bright Light on Curtis's case and the racist district
attorney driving it. After twenty three long years on death
row and another trip to the Supreme Court, district Attorney
(01:30):
Doug Evans finally stepped off the case. Upon review, the
Attorney General of Mississippi dropped all charges. This is wrongful
conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
(01:55):
Jason Flam. And I'm gonna throw a few numbers at
you before I introduce our guest. So, Curtis Flowers was
wrongfully convicted six times spent twenty three years on death
row for four murders that he didn't commit. Curtis Flowers,
Welcome to wrongful conviction here. So let's go back to
the beginning. You grew up in a small town in Mississippi.
(02:16):
Right is about eighty four miles north of Jackson, Mississippi,
a small town about the population of five thousand, over black.
Did you have a happy childhood? Yes, I do. Brothers, sisters, brothers.
To have four sisters, one brother, I'm the I guess
(02:37):
you'd call the middle child. So everything was pretty much fine,
I guess until what would seemed like a very minor
incident at a store that you only worked that for
a few days. I'm talking about Tardy Furniture, which should
have come and went and never been the subject of
even one little minor discussion. But nonetheless, since it was
(03:01):
the incident that started this crazy chain of events going,
can you just tell us what happened at Tardy Furniture. Well,
I went to work and tardies on one morning, and uh,
she asked me to pull around back so the business
next door could load some batteries onto the truck, and
leaving I pulled off in two of the batteries slid
(03:22):
off the truck. I got back to the store, I
told her about them. She said, we'll take them back
around there and let me see if they can replace them,
because if they can't, then you don't have to pay
for them, because she should have tied them down. And
I said, okay, So I took them back. Mr Jimmy Sanders,
who worked there, told me that we well, we'll work
it out. So I went back and told her everything
(03:42):
was good. You know, she sent me home to deliver
furniture all that day, you know, by me just starting.
You know, she even advanced me, I think it was.
And didn't go back to work at the store after that.
But I didn't fine whatever, and uh later it became
a motive, right, like this little minor incident was going
to cause you to go back and shoot four people
(04:04):
in the head. So now, unbeknownst to you, a terrible,
terrible thing happens right at Tardy Furniture. On the morning
of July n Sam Jones Jr. Retired employee of Tardy
Furniture Company, reported that the owner of Birth of Tardy,
who was fifty nine, had called him at nine am
asking him to come into the store to train a
(04:24):
couple of new employees, a guy named Derek Bobo Stewart
of sixteen and Robert Golden of forty two. Old Matt
Jones arrived an hour later and found a horror scene.
He found that Tardy, Stewart, Golden, and another employee named
Carmen Rigby, old woman had all been shot and killed.
Well one of them, sixteen year old Mr Stewart, was
(04:45):
the only one still alive, but he died in the
hospital a few days later, and supposedly two seven dollars
was missing from the cash riders. So that gives me
the chills because it's just what's the price of a life?
And then they rest in peace. So just this crazy coincidence,
smallest town like that, you know, place that you happened
to previously work and even the fact that you worked
there at one time really shouldn't have set off too
(05:07):
many alarm bells. Maybe somebody would have quickly looked into
it and ruled you out, But this wasn't just anybody, right.
What we're talking about is you ran into the crosshairs
of District Attorney Doug Evans. Then they covered this in
this fantastic podcast, which I'm sure some of our listeners
have heard called in the Dark. Thought it was brilliantly done.
(05:27):
Let me just say that one of the things that
jumps out to me from the podcast about Doug Evans
was that an analysis by a p M for the
podcast discovered that Evans and his assistant d A's over
the course of twenty six years, struck black perspective jurors
at nearly four and a half times the rate they
struck white ones. And of course we know that's one
(05:48):
of the main reasons why your conviction kept getting overturned,
because he kept excluding black jurors from the jury's which
is of course a violation of the fourteenth Amendment. This
is a guy who was elected again in November two
thousand nineteen, so he's been in there forever still the
d A. But numerous civil rights lawsuits have been filed
against him. But according to the Mississippi Bar Association, it
(06:10):
is hard to believe he's received no public sanction and
remains a lawyer in good standing. So let's let's go back.
Let's go back. Hold them. So the crime took place
on July sixteenth, nine six When did you even hear
about it? The same day? Uh, they come by the house,
wants to know if they could talk with me. They
said they heard that I used to work there and
(06:31):
maybe I could help them. You know, maybe I've seen
something and don't realize I saw it, and I so
sure I went down with him untild you know, every
time I left. You know what we talked about here today,
don't don't tell anyone else. And we just want to
know you're not a suspect. We just we just thought
maybe you could help, you know, So I said, okay,
But everyone on the street was telling me that when
(06:53):
they talked with them, they said I was a suspect.
They tested your hands for gunshot residents in my hands
to do the morning they picked me up. I wanted
to question me. They wanted to rule me out, so
he said, and uh, I agree, And I agreed to
gunshot residue tests, and they gave it to me. And
(07:15):
later they come back and say they think one particle
of gunshot residude. You know, I don't know anything about residue,
but law your argor that there are three elements to
gunshot residude. You can't have one without the other two.
And and he asked them, well, how did miss Flower
get to the police station and I got down? It
(07:37):
would have stayed true, he said, isn't it true? They
fried their weapons every morning, and and miss Flower the
ship hands with him, so he could have picked up
that particle just like that, or could have come from
a firework and we have a whole episode of our
show Wrong for Conviction Jump Science devoted to the gunshot RESIDUEATIONE.
There are literally dozens of substances that could, you know,
(07:57):
sort of fool the test, you know, and that it
all has to be independently corroborated or else it's just
junk science. Yes, and I even heard that you could
get that from just just messing with a car battery,
car battery, cigarette ash, dried urine, or also giving you
a gunshot of rather do tests and he don't have
one gloves right, and he's handling your hands, Well, he's
(08:18):
doing it just transferable. So that's the flimsiest of flimsy
evidence that you could have. Not evidence is a wrong word,
but they call the evidence. I call it bullshit. Okay,
So your prints were not found at the crime scene,
and your clothes they took your clothes, right, clothes, went
(08:38):
to the crime lab and turned up nothing. Right, So
are you a ghost? You not a ghost? At that
point maybe reasonable people could agree that they could have
started looking for the actual perpetrator, but they continued on.
Now at the scene, three footprints from size ten and
(08:59):
a half feel a gym shoes were later discovered. And
don't get me started on footprint on analysis because that's
a whole another junk science. And there was no paper
money only changed in the cash pheris again supposedly two
seven dollars was missing. A police found five shell casings
at the scene, which were from a three eighty caliber
semi automatic pistol. They also found two spent bullets to
(09:19):
bullet fragments and one live bullet. Now have you ever
owned a three d caliber semi automatic pistol? Okay, So
now entered Doyle Simpson. Doyle Simpson was your uncle. He
reported that a pistol of this same type in caliber
had been stolen from his car in the parking lot
of the Angelica Garment factory where he worked. So he
now came under suspicions. On July, Simpson took a polygraph
(09:45):
test that revealed deception when he said that he's gun
had been stolen from his car and when he said
he knew nothing about the murders. Again, we know polygraphs
are not super accurate, but they can give you some indication.
But we should not take a polygraph as just gospel,
because it's not. But according to the polygraph from the
political where he lied about where he got the gun,
(10:06):
and police later discovered that he called his brother asking
him to lie to the police as well, telling them
that he had sold the gun to Simpson, but the
brother refused. He was later found out that he did
about his where about that morning of those murder don't
claim he was at work all morning, and his own
sister said she saw his car we on eighty two,
(10:27):
she saw him drive about that morning. Well, I can
think of a couple of reasons why that could be.
One would be that he wanted to deflect this fishon
away from him because he was actually guilty. Or the
other would be that he just was trying to like
not be any part of this and so was making
up a story that he was at work just to
try to throw the police off even looking further into him.
That was my first though. So Simpson went on to
(10:47):
tell the cops that he practiced shooting this gun in
a rural spot, but a detective went to that location
and pulled the spent plug from a post, and according
to the firearms expert from the Michigan State Police, David Ballast,
testified that he determined that the bullet from the post
actually did have marking similar to the bullets recovered from
the crime scene. In August of nine, detectives led by
(11:10):
the DA investigator John Johnson questioned Mr Simpson about their findings,
but again he denied his involvement and maintained that the
gun had been stolen from the car that morning. So
despite the fact that they're like flashing arrows now pointing
towards Simpson, right, they continued to focus on you. And
now they discovered a box of size tended to half
(11:35):
Feelers shoes at your girlfriend, Connie's house. I later found
out that my girlfriend at the time, Connie head Ball
her son Marcus, a pair of Feelers shoe size tend
and a half. And then that's how they laid up
to me wearing a pair of tennant half FeelA. Do
you wear a size tenna a half feel is shoe.
Most shoes that were eleven and a half dress shoe,
(11:56):
but in gym shoes, I can't wear eleven. Well, anybody
who's ever worn a shoot that's a half to a
full size too small kind of report that is very uncomfortable.
I think it's unlikely that those were your shoes. Under
any circumstances. And I'm going to say to that feelers
were pretty stylish back in the late nineties, were okay.
(12:17):
So most of the people who were questioned later on reported,
and this will surprise exactly no one, They reported that
they were afraid of being arrested themselves unless they cooperated
with the police, and some said that rewards of up
to thirty thousand dollars were dangled in front of them
if they agreed to cooperate. So they were using the
(12:38):
carrot and the stick. So they eventually, not surprisingly, got
statements from a dozen different witnesses who said they saw
you in various locations in and around whine Known on
the morning of the crime. And based on these statements,
which were almost certainly fabricated and coerced and rewarded right
when you put the third dollar reward out, people that
(13:01):
didn't even know me knew me there, and everybody saw
me here and there. I'd have to be superman to
be in all those places around the same time and
dressed differently, right, Yeah, the winness described me wearing something different,
But based on all these crazy statements that they had
to try to piece together, and I've seen the map
that shows your movements on that morning, Like I think
(13:22):
I saw it sixty minutes or something. It's like, it's
so ridiculous. He was zigzagging all over town, according to
these in all different clothes. So they developed this crazy
theory that motivated by the anger of this loss of
this fantastic tardy furniture delivery job that you had, that
you had walked all over town, stole Simpson's gun, walked home,
(13:44):
walked back across town, shot and killed the four victims,
robbed cash register, and then just tootled your way back home.
Not a care in the world. Right now, we have
to fast forward all the way to January three teenth,
ninety seven, plane O, Texas. So you moved to Plano,
Texas right with your girlfriend, Ms. Connie Moore. What happened
(14:08):
at that time? I was working from three to eleven
and I got up to fix myself some lunch. It
was a knock at the door, and right before I
grabbed the door, I saw a movement. You know, I
have to patty your door. And you know it's what
they call runners, you know who just in case you run.
You know, they got guys set up to chase So
I opened the door and uh, he said, how are
(14:29):
you doing? I said, I'm doing okay. How are you, sir?
And uh he said I'm looking for Curtis Flowers. I
said that would be me. And before I could say
anything else, I was all against the wall talking sheet
rock moved upside, my full head being coughed, and I said, ma.
I asked why am I being arrested? He said, well,
we have a warrant for your arrist back in Mississippi
(14:51):
for four counts of captain murder. This episode is underwritten
by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
law firm. Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment
to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to the most
(15:14):
vulnerable members of our society and in support of the
public interest, including extensive work in the criminal justice area.
It took me back to the Mississippi where I was
put in jail in Lafleur County, and that's where I
(15:35):
sat until I went to trial in October of seven.
So you get charged with four accounts of capital murder.
Let's go to trial number one. Hard to believe that
you had six damn trials. I mean, that's not a
record that I think you ever wanted to hold or set.
And it was not the winning So the first trial,
they only tried you for one of the murder's birth
at Tardeys. I know your attorney had tried to combine
(15:57):
them right into one case, but of course that was denied.
Everything he tried was denied pretty much, right, So the
trial was moved to Lee County and the jury was
get ready. Oh now, from what I understand, it was
moved to Lee County because of extensive media coverage. Is
that your understanding, That's what I hear. And then they
claimed that I couldn't get a fair trial in my
(16:19):
own hometown. Keep in mind, I want on it is
what about Lee? I don't know the population there, but
the blacks they were there, they didn't get on the jury.
So it's dull in his trial tactics, you know, right,
And those are called peremptory challenges, right, which is the
technical term for defendants or lawyer's objection to a proposed juror,
(16:41):
which is made without needing to give a reason. But
it is illegal to exclude jurors because of their race.
So they had plenty of black jurors to choose from.
They just didn't choose to put any of them on
your jury exactly. So now magically the prosecution had found
two more witnesses, and we hear this in Getting Again
right on this show. These are incentivized jail house niches,
(17:04):
Frederick Veale and Maurice Hawkins, and they both testified that
you were their sellmate while you were waiting trial, and
that you admitted to committing the crime. So jail house niches,
they are the most unreliable witnesses of all because they're
all incentivized, and sometimes they lie about being incentivized while
they're lying about overhearing these magical confessions. Right. So both
(17:26):
of these two guys later recanted. We're just going to
speculate that they may have gotten whatever they were going
to get. They got with two sentenses that got rewarded
in some way. So now we get to Patricia Hallman,
who was a neighbor of yours, and she testified that
on the morning of the crime, around seven thirty a m.
She saw you going into your house in a rage.
(17:47):
I can just picture her making up this story, Okay,
And other witnesses testified to seeing you at various times
that morning, including Katherine Snow, who claimed that she saw
you leading against a car outside the factory where Simpson worked.
Clemmie Fleming testified that she got a ride home from
Roy Harris to go make a payment at Tardy Furniture,
(18:07):
but she said she didn't go in because she was
pregnant and feeling sick, so Harris drove her home. Now,
why does that matter? Because she said she saw you
running away from the store, and Harris said he also
saw someone running but only thought it was you because
Fleming said, So this this web is getting deep and deep. Bro.
So now comes Jack Matthews, an investigator for the Mississippi
(18:29):
Highway State Patrol, who testified that, based on a ledger
sheet at Tardy Furniture, two seven dollars was missing from
the cash draw. Now, they then came up with the
theory the two fifty five dollars that was found in
Connie's home your girlfriend was the same money that was
missing from the furniture store. Amazing, because no one else
had two hundred dollars. It must have been the same
(18:50):
two hundred dollars. And I thought that was so crazy.
Is she not allowed to save money. I mean, I
imagine most people in town had a little bit of
cash in their house, like they could have said, any
thing could have been twenty dollars. Oh, here's the twenty
from the store. What do you know? Amazing. I'm glad
you could laugh about it, because I'm about to cry,
(19:10):
for sometimes you have to lead keeping cry. Okay. Well,
so then there was a forensic analyst who conducted the
gunshot residue tests on your hands, which magically produced one particle,
who testified that the residue certainly had to be from
handling a gun and not anything else. So this is
a guy who didn't know what the fun he was
(19:31):
talking about, because we know that that's not true. Then
Ballish testified, remember him from before, positive that the bullets
recovered from the scene had been fired from Simpson's gun.
But when testified about the ten and a half sized
Pheela box found in her home, your girlfriend told the
story that you had said right, that she had purchased
for her son in November of and that her son
(19:53):
took them when he moved to his father's in They
could have verified that if they cared. You testified that
he had started working at Hardy and Orly July six,
What was your testimony with the batteries about? Like I
told them, she sent me around to I think it
was a task who at the time who sold her
the battery. Now my job was just pick the batteries
up and take them out into the country club and
(20:16):
they're gonna put them on the golf cards. But you know,
pulling off from a tasko to the batter sleep out
hit the pavement and one was leaking the other one.
There was nothing wrong with the better other than you know,
the edges got danged up on the concrete, and uh,
she said, we'll just take them back around there, and uh,
I'm a call and see if they give me some
type of deal on them or replace them. If they can't,
(20:38):
then you did, I have to come out of your pay.
I said, I have no problem with that, because you're right,
I suppoke to time them down no offense. But that's
a boring story, I mean, And it wasn't the only
boring part of your day because on the day of
the crime, you also testified about getting up at nine,
cooking a little breakfast and on the can of short
(20:59):
and the sister's house to get some vantages and commedian
store to buy some beer and chips. It really sounds
like a very average, average, average day. And you told
them that you hadn't committed the crime, that you hadn't
stolen the gun, and that you hadn't been running near
the store at ten am. You also told them, which
was again easily verifiable, that you wore size eleven Nike shoes,
(21:20):
and that you're shot off fireworks the day before the
murders and handled the lead car battery at working on
the truck, which you know, you're not a scientist, but
even you could figure out that these things could cause this,
you know, confusion to the testing. Right. Well, I later
found that out. You know, I'm just being honest about
what I did. And what about alibi witnesses? Do you
(21:41):
have any button at the first trial, only the keys
and and they ruled that they didn't want to bring
the keys and it because they were so young, you know,
and and and dramatize them or anything like that. But
there was a few people knew my whereabout. My cousin
even come by the house and told me what was
going on. He said, when I first heard it, all
I thought about was you I thought you got killed
down there, so I can't go here to check on you.
(22:03):
And then the jury deliberated for one whole hour, one
whole hour, one hour. I can't imagine what that conversation
was like. The all white jury convicted you in an hour,
and later that day they went ahead and imposed the
death penalty. Oh man, my my world was turned upside
down putting this whole and parchment is I cannot describe
(22:29):
partment to you. If if you didn't have someone it's
on the outside who love and support you, it was
hard to maintain in there. Some guys just taking sheets
and take it own. Live. Man. I've experienced that a
lot while I was there. It's it's a bad place.
(23:12):
So between trial went in to the jail house. Niche
Mr Veale recanted his testimony, saying that he had been
coerced by the prosecution and promised a piece of the reward.
But Hawkins stood by his testimony. But when your attorney
confronted him with the transcript of an interview he had
done during which he never talked about you. In the transcript,
(23:33):
he said that he testified quote to protect myself from
doing time and getting killed. In quote in exchange for
his testimony, very important hawkins Is cocaine charge was dropped
and he got house arrest for burglary. I'm a guess
that Mr Hawkins was a black man. Did they typically
give black men house arrest for burglary in Mississippi? They
(23:54):
do not know. I know, he answered that question. I
just wanted to hear you say okay. So while the
first conviction was being appealed, the second trial occurred and
it was moved to Harrison County. And if this second
trial was for the murder of Derek Bobo Stewart, this
time the jury was made up of eleven white jurors
and one black juror, so they managed to get one
(24:16):
on there this time, but that didn't help either. But
in this trial, Roy Harris, the guy who allegedly took
Connie Fleming, remember her by the Tardis Furniture store, He
testified again, but this time he said that he saw
a man running in downtown white On at nine am
s to the ten am and it Miss Fleming was
not with him, which was a totally different story than
(24:38):
he had told the first time. So he was trying
to have in trouble remembering his own life, so he
said that an hour later. It is hard when you
lie to remember them sometimes, so he said that an
hour later, round ten, Fleming had asked him to take
her to Tardy Furniture, but she changed her mind. They
turned around before even arriving, another change, so nothing was consistent.
So Cleming Fleming's is cousins Latarsia bliss Set and Stacy
(25:02):
Wright both testified that Fleming admitted to them that she
had not seen you running from the store. Fleming's sister,
mary Ella, also testified, saying that Fleming came to her
house on the morning of the murders and a friend
stopped over to tell them that Birtha Tardy had been killed.
Mary Ella testified that she and Fleming went to Tardy Furniture,
but that Fleming never mentioned seeing you that morning. There's
(25:24):
so many holes in this, like Swiss cheese pieces. Defense
also called your defense called Odel Holman Jr. Who was
the brother of Patricia Halmon who testified in the first trial,
and Odell Mr. Hellman Jr. Who was imprisoned on a
probation violation for aggravated assault, testified that Patricia was lying,
doing so at his suggestion in an attempt to cash
(25:44):
in on the reward. The pieces are just falling off
this puzzle. Nonetheless, you were convicted again on March thirty,
convicted of capital murder and got death penalty again. So
now we get to the reversals. In December of two thousand,
the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed your first conviction. I ordered
(26:05):
a new trial. Now, no mention was made of the
racially biased jury selection, which is odd, But they did
hold that your trial was unfair because the prosecution presented
evidence of all four murders when you were only being
tried for the murder of Miss Hardy. This led to
the jury's exposure to inflammatory and prejudicial evidence. Sure they
(26:25):
thought you were like a mass killer, right, they were
price scarity. The court also noted that evans cross examination
included questions that had no basis in fact and that
we're in poor faith. Evans also presented information that was
never in evidence. Now for the Mississippi Supreme Court to say,
it's pretty strong. So in April two thousand and three,
(26:46):
now the Mississippi Supreme Court also reversed your conviction for Mr.
Stewart's murder. The court found the same issues in the
first trial, naturally because it was the same prosecutor and
in the same dirty tricks, emphasizing that your right to
a fair trial was impossible due to the prosecution including
evidence from the other murders. But still they didn't mention
the racially biased jury selection, which would seem to be
the most obvious thing of all. But at least they
(27:07):
got it right for the well, they didn't get all
the reasons, but they got it right for one of
the reasons, or two of the reason, whatever it is.
But due to these two reversals, the prosecution now decided
they would do with your defense lawyer had asked for
all these years ago, which was to consolidate the four cases.
So trial three February two thousand and four. Now you're
being tried for all four murders. This trial was this
(27:30):
was held in Montgomery County. Now why is it? Why
are we laughing? Because that's started. They moved it out
of one owner then and brought it back to one on.
So now all of a sudden, it's okay to try
you back and wait, no, no, okay. During jury selection,
the prosecution used seven of their challenges to get rid
of black jurors. The defense objected correctly and contending that
(27:51):
it was racially motivated. Could have been a coincidence, but
sure do seem like it. The prosecution then used its
remaining five run through challenges black people as well. The
jury was ultimately composed, you guessed it, eleven white jurors
at one black jury, and the one black person that
managed to get on this jury was only selected because again,
(28:15):
I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, because you're gonna
know this before I say it, but it's because they
ran out of pensery challenges. The prosecution couldn't get rid
of the last black person, so that person was was
put on the jury, and the court ruled that this
was not racially discriminatory, that they just happened to use
all twelve of their challenges to get rid of black people.
(28:37):
Crazy coincidence, though, say, and this trial was similar to
the first two, but this time Mr Hallman Jr. Remember
Odell Hallman Jr. Testified for the prosecution. He said that
while he was in prison, you confessed to him that
you committed the murders. And it wasn't until much later
that we found out what his little deal was. Right,
(28:59):
and it's crazy you right, because everybody that watches TV
knows you can't bribe a witness, right, you go to
jail for that ship. But they don't. They can drive
all the witnesses they want, they want, and they got
better bribes than anybody the outside could possibly have. I
don't care if you go to somebody to say I
give you a million knowledge, testify the way I want
you to, they can say I'll let you out of
(29:19):
prison exactly in his case, that's what happened. Oh boy, Okay.
So February two thousand and four, the jury convicted you
of all four counts of capital murder under sentence to death.
Again part of leaders sitting here many times it even
sends the death here. You strike me as easy to
love and hard to kill. But that's just me, okay. Anyway.
(29:41):
Three years later, on February first, two thousand and seven,
here goes again, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the convictions
again and ordered a new trial. The court found that
prosecution was racially discriminatory and jury selection, this time noting
that the case was and I quote as strong as
a prima facie case of racial discriminated as we have
ever seen. That's powerful in Mississippi or anywhere. But that's crazy.
(30:05):
So okay, now they try you again, call me kookie,
But I don't think the same prosecutors should be allowed
to just keep trying the same personal true again. I
think that might be some way you want to take
a look at. But this time the jury consisted of
seven white and five black jurors. They gave me a
little December fIF thousand seven, a miss trial was declared
as the jury could not reach a verdict and get
(30:26):
ready for another shocker surprise ending seven white numbers of
the jury voted to convict and the five black members
voted to a quit. I don't even have the right
words for that. So here comes trial number five, September
two thousand eight. This time the jury was made up
of nine white and three black members. The jury ended
(30:46):
up in another mistrial, this time voting eleven to one
to convict. The one the centing person was a black person.
And comes trial number six and summer of two thousand
and ten, And this time the jury was composed of
eleven white in one black member, and they found you
guilty on all four accounts of capital murder. Again on
June eighteenth to two thousand and ten and sends you
(31:09):
to death again. And now we get to the post
post post post post post. It took me a long
time just to say that, and you had to live it.
It's conviction litigation. So you were represented now by Kireweebel
and Sherry Lynn Johnson from the Cornell Law School Death
Penalty Clinic, and they appealed your conviction and in two
(31:29):
thousand fourteen, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the convictions and
death sentence. Is it. The team sought review in the U. S.
Supreme Court and in two thousand sixteen they ordered the
Mississippi Supreme Court to review the possibly racially discriminatory jury selection.
In November two thousand seventeen, that was ruled I'm getting
(31:51):
the jails again. It was ruled by a five to
four vote that there was no discrimination. Um, the most
polite way I can think of to say, this is
what the fun they're talking about? I think I think
I did say it that way went out for her
(32:12):
that you know, it's sad, it really is. But your
team appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court again, and
this is when American Public Media a PM started their investigation,
and they did as we talked about the podcast in
the Dark, and this podcast began in May two thousand eighteen,
(32:34):
and it was a big hit, a big, big hit,
and the things they uncovered shocking. Fleming now said her
testimonies and all that the trial relies. She confessed that
quote the whole this is her quote. The whole time,
I've been telling them, I don't remember the day. The
whole time I've been telling them, I don't remember the day.
I've been confused of the day from the beginning. I
(32:56):
just didn't know how to say it. I was scared
I was going to jail. Wow, okay. Odell Hallman also recanting,
saying that everything was all make believe on his part,
and he also said that Evans dropped the drug charges
penning against him and offered him other legal assistance. Roy Harris,
(33:17):
who was the friend and driver of Clemmie Fleming, told
the podcast that police had showed him a photo of you,
and Harris said that the man he saw running away
was not you exactly. Eventually he thought he was going
to get arrested if he didn't say it was you,
So we did. Edward mccristian also recanted his testimony that
(33:38):
he was sitting on the porch at seven th eight
am when you supposedly allegedly walked past his house from
your uncle Doyle Simpson's workplace, the garment factory, where the
testimony had tied you to the alleged stolen gun. So
all those lies are now unraveling. So in June two
thousand and nineteen, the U. S. Supreme Court reversed your
(34:00):
convictions and death sentences by a vote of seven to two.
That's amazing. It ruled that the prosecution had engaged in
racially discriminatory jury selection because they had struck forty one
of the forty two black perspective jurors in the six
trials combined. So shery Lyn Johnson had made the argument
(34:20):
that led to the U. Supreme Court decision to reversee.
She argued that your case should be dismissed and not
brought to a seventh trial. Should be obvious to anybody,
as you had already spent over twenty years now on
death row, and that the evidence against you was basically advantaged.
It was not exist it never had existed, but now
it has proven that it had never existed. The watching
(34:43):
d C law firm of Hogan Lovell's, as well as
the friend of the show, the director of the Mississippi
Innocence Project, Tucker Carrington at the Mississippi Office of Post
Conviction Council, got involved, as well as attorneys Rob McDuff
we know him, and Henderson Hill. They all began preparing
for a possible retrial. Now you had the Dream Team
Avengers yea. And in December sixty nineteen you were finally
(35:07):
released to home confinement to wait for your seventh trial.
This had been almost twenty three years in prison, right right,
What do you remember about that day? I was nervous,
you know, you know I would have been so close
to home all the years and never made it, you know.
And at that time, I was like, I don't see
him giving me bail, letting me go home, you know,
(35:30):
until they decide what they want to do, where they
want to have a seventh trial or not. But we
got in the courtroom, you know, and the Gifts didn't
even show up that day. He's sending his assistant, Jorge
Lober talking. He got started in about the d A
not showing up. You know, I would expect him to
be here, you know. And and the more he talked,
(35:50):
the bet I felt. And when we talked about the
and and he said, you know, at this time, you know,
I am going to Grantville. Where'd you're going? Text is
back to Plano Plano two sisters. Yes, what was your
first meal when you got out? Oh? Man? I had
fried fish, catfish, hush public french fried coldslaw. And he
(36:13):
was a funny thing too, be called. We were in
the restroom, me, my brother in law and has been
like seven and eight other guy. So I'm standing at
the urinal and you know, relieved myself. So I get through.
I'm looking for the handle, and everybody was saying, just
just walk away. I said, no, that's rude. You don't
leak in a urinal and just walk away. I said
(36:33):
later on that could start smelling. You know, everybody, Hey,
just walk away. I stepped back and flushed itself and
I had to walk back up to it and look
at it, you know. And one of the guys in there,
the white guy, he said, I don't know where you're being,
but you've been going for a long time. As I yes,
I am, and I'm watching my hand and as my
(36:53):
brother and I walked back through the restaurant dry my
hands and everything, people would just stop at me, It's
gonna be okay, And I guess they would. They gotten
told the wives and everything about what happened in the bathroom,
you know, and people just tell me it's gonna be okay. Yes,
I mean, And it was funny and emotion at the
same time. On December sixteen, you were released to home
(37:17):
confinement waiting for the seventh trial, like we talked about.
And then in January, Evans stepped off the case and
the Attorney General's office began reviewing it. So and sure enough,
on September four, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced that
the charges were going to be dismissed, and you stated,
(37:39):
I'm now I'm gonna quote you even though you're sitting
right here in front of me. Today, I am finally
free from the injustice that left me locked in a
box for twenty three year. Oh. I felt like doing flips.
You know, big guy like me shouldn't be doing flips.
But but it's happiness. I can't even describe. You're here,
(38:01):
Jewish Loper say, you know I dismissed this case with prejudice.
M hm, yes, and you know, and at the time
the words didn't wring on me. And someone told me
he said, when he said with prejudice, that means that
they can never try you again. Yeah, that's beautiful and
it's funny because prejudice is usually a bad word. Is
(38:23):
the only instance I can think of when it's a
good word. So in the meantime, it's great to see
you out here living your best life, married, you know, traveling.
What can our listeners do to show support. I do
have a go fund me out there, so yes, we'll
have it linked in the bio. So now, Mr Flowers,
we have a segment of our show that I love
(38:45):
the most, which is called Closing Arguments. It works like this.
First of all, I again thank you for just being
you and and being here in the studio with me.
And then I turned my microphone off, kick back in
my chair and sometimes I close my eyes and just
listen to anything else you have to say. It's called
(39:05):
closing arguments, and you have the mike and you can
just talk about anything you think you want to share.
But I would first like to thank you all for
having me. Uh, and I think you also got I
really do and look forward to hanging out with you.
To all the listeners are I asked that we strive
(39:26):
a change, you know, and and make this a better place.
I think we all should get along and love one
another and not hate for no reason at all. You know. Uh,
I'm gonna lead back guy. I'm easy to get along with.
(39:46):
I would like to send shout out to all the victims,
family and and I hope one day soon did they
find the real guy. Thank you for listening to Wrongful
Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your local innocence projects
(40:10):
and go to the link in our bio to see
how you can help. I'd like to thank our production
team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warns. The music
on the show, as always, is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
(40:33):
for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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