TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Katharine Heriges on Jun 21, 2019
The Supreme Court has struck down the conviction of an African American death row inmate who was prosecuted six times for the same crime and by the same prosecutor, a man with a history of racial bias in jury selection, NPR reports. Curtis Flowers has spent 22 years on death row in Mississippi. In his cases, the same prosecutor struck 41 of 42 prospective black jurors. Writing for the court's 7-2 majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, "The numbers speak loudly. Over the course of the first four trials, there were 36 black prospective jurors against whom the State could have exercised a peremptory strike. The State tried to strike all 36."