Curtis Flowers lived in the small town of Winona, Mississippi, and began a job at Tarti Furniture, but while transporting some car batteries, two of them fell off his truck, and store owner Bertha Tarti 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 sixteenth, nineteen ninety six, the bodies of Bertha Tarti 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 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 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 thrown out,
they tried him again for all four murders. After six trials and a trip to the Supreme Court, this farce 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 Doug Evans finally stepped off the case. Upon review, the Attorney General of
Mississippi dropped all charges. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. And I'm going to throw a few numbers at you before I introduce our guests. 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. Good to be here. So let's go back to the beginning. You grew up in a small town in Mississippi, right.
Yes, one only is about eighty four miles north of Jacksonssissippi, a small town about the population of five thousand, over forty five percent black.
Did you have a happy childhood? Yes, I did. Brothers, sisters, brothers.
I have four sisters, one brother. I'm the I guess you'd call the middle child.
So everything was pretty much fine, I guess up until would seemed like a very minor incident at a store that you only worked at for a few days. I'm talking about Tardy Furniture, which should have come and went and never been a subject of even one little minor discussion. True. Nonetheless, since it was the incident that started this crazy chain of events going, can you just tell us what happened at Tarti Furniture.
Well, I went to work at Tarti's one morning and she asked me to pull around back so then the business next door could load some batteries onto the truck and leaving. I pulled off, and two of the batteries slid 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. Mister Jimmy Sanders, who worked there, told me that we'll work it out. So I went back and told her everything was good. You know, she sent me home to deliver furniture all day that day, you know, by me just starting. You know, she even advanced me. I think it was thirty dollars.
You didn't go back to work at the store after that, No, I didn't. It's okay, fine, whatever.
And later it became a motive, right, like this little minor incident was going to cause you to go back and shoot four people in the head.
So now, unbeknownst to you, a terrible, terrible thing happens right at Tarti Furnish On the morning of July sixteenth, nineteen ninety six. Sam Jones Junior, a retired employee of Tarti Furniture Company, reported that the owner of Bertha Tarti, who was fifty nine, had called him at nine am, asking him to come into the store to train a couple of new employees. A guy named Derek Bobo Stewart of sixteen and Robert Golden, a forty two yar old man.
Jones arrived an hour later and found a horror scene. He found that Tarti, Stuart, Golden, and another employee named Carmen Rigby, a forty five year old woman, had all been shot and killed. Well one of them, sixteen year old mister Stuart, was the only one still alive, but he died in the hospital a few days later, and supposedly two hundred and eighty seven dollars was missing from the cash reder. So that gives me the chills because it's just what's the price of a life? And may
they rest in peace. So it's just this crazy coincidence. The smallest town like that, you know that you happened to previously work and even the fact that you worked there at one time really shouldn't have set off too many alarm bells. Maybe somebody would have quickly looked into it and ruled you out exactly, 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. 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 APM for the podcast discovered that Evans and his assistant DA's over the course of twenty six years struck black prospective jurors at nearly four and a half times the rate they struck white ones.
And of course we know that's one of the main reasons why your conviction kept getting overturned, because he kept excluding black jurors from the jurys, which is of course a violation of the fourteenth Amendment. This is a guy who was elected again in November twenty nineteen, so he's been in there forever still the DA, but numerous civil
rights lawsuits have been filed against him. But according to the Mississippi Bar Association, it's 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 on, So the crime took place on July sixteenth, nineteen ninety six, When did you even hear about it?
The same day they come by the house, want to know if they could talk with me. They say to her that I used to work there and maybe I could help them. You know, maybe I've seen something and don't realize us I saw it, and I said sure. I went down with him until you know, every time I left. You know what we talked about here today, don't don't tell anyone else. And we would just want you 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 they talked with him, they said I was a suspect.
They tested your hands for gunshot wresid.
Testing my hands for gunshot rest to do the morning they picked me up, I wanted to question me. They wanted to rule me out, so he said, and I agreed, and I agreed to a gunshot residue tests and they gave it to me. And later they come back and said they I think one particle of gunshot residue. You know, I don't know anything about residue. But my lawyer argued that there are three elements to gunshot residue. You can't
have one without the other two. And he asked them, well, how did miss Flower get to the police station and I got down there, would stayed true, he says, in't it true? They fired their weapons every morning and miss Flowers shook hands with them, so he could have picked up that particle just.
Like that, or could have come from a firework. No, And we have a whole episode of our show for conviction John Science devoted to a gunshot residue issue out There are literally dozens of substances that could, you know, sort of fool the test, you know, and that 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 drive urine.
Or also giving you a gunshot of rether do tests and he don't have one gloves right, and he's handling your hands while he's doing it.
Sure it's transferable. Yeah, So that's the flimsiest of flimsy evidence that you could have not evident is the wrong word, but they call it 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 to the crime lab and turned up nothing, nothing right, So are you a ghost? You don't see what? Not a ghost? Okay? So 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 a half feel a gym shoes were later discovered. And don't even get me started on footprint analysis because that's a whole other junk science. And there was no paper money, only changing the cashhers again, supposedly two hundred eighty seven dollars was missing. At least found five shellcasings at the scene, which were from a three eighty caliber semi automatic pistol. They also found two
spent bullets, two bullet fragments, and one live bullet. Now have you ever owned a three eighty caliber semi automatic pistol? Okay? So now enter 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 suspicion. On July twenty second, nineteen ninety six, Simpson took a polygraph test that revealed deception when he said that his 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 and the poligapher, he lied about where he got the gun, 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.
It was later found out that he did a lot about his swhere about that morning of those murder dog claimed he was at work all morning. His own sister said she saw his car we out on eighty two. She saw him drive by that morning.
Well, I can think of a couple of reasons why that could be. One would be that he wanted to deflect this vision 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 thought. So Simpson went on to 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 firearms expert for the Michigan State Police, David Bolish, 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 ninety six, detectives led by the DA investigator John Johnson questioned mister 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 there are like flashing arrows now pointing towards Simpson right, they continued to focus on you. And now they discovered a box of size ten and a half Feel of shoes at your girlfriend, Connie's house.
I later found out that my girlfriend at the time, Connie, had bought her son Marcus, a pair of Feel of shoes size ten and a half, And then that's how they led up to me wearing a pair of ten and a half Fela.
Do you wear a size ten and a half feel a shoe.
Most shoes, I wear eleven and a half your shoe, but in gym shoes, I can't wear eleven.
Well, anybody who's ever worn a shoe that's a half to a full size too small can report that is not very uncomfortable. So I think it's unlikely that those were your shoes under any circumstances. And I'm going to say too that feelers were pretty stylish back in the
late nineties. They were okay. 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 carrot and tostick. So they eventually, not surprisingly, got statements from a dozen different witnesses who said they saw you in various locations in and around why Nona 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 down dollar reward out.
People that didn't even know me knew me then, 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, yes, each witness 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 I saw it in sixty minutes or something. It's like, it's so ridiculous. You were zigzagging all over town, according
to 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, walked back across town, shot it, killed the four victims, robbed the cash register, and then just tootled your way back home, my way. Not a care, not a cure in the world. Right now, we have to fast forward
all the way. Sid January third teenth, nineteen ninety seven, Plano, Texas. So you moved to Plano Texas right yes, with your girlfriend MSUs Connie Moore. What happened that the time I.
Was working from three to eleven and I got up to fix myself some lunch. There was a knock at the door, and right before I grabbed the door, I saw a movement you know, out the pat of 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 he said how are you doing? I said, I'm doing okay.
How are you, sir?
And 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.
I'm talking about sheet.
Rock mood upside my full head being cuffed and I said, may I ask why am I being arrested? He said, well, we have a warrant for your arrest back in Mississippi for four counts of captain murder.
This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton 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 vulnerable members of our society and in support of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal justice area.
They took me back to the Mississippi where I was put in jail in Lafour County, and that's where I sat until I went to trial in October of ninety seven.
So you get charged with four counts 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 Attartey, So I know your attorney had tried to combine them right into one case, but of course that was denied.
Everything he tried was denied pretty much. So the trial was moved to Lee County and the jury was get ready all wait. Now, from what I understand, it was moved to Lee County because of extensive media coverage. Is that your understanding? That's what I heard.
And then they claimed that I couldn't get a fair trial in my own hometown. Keep in mind, I went on it is forty five black What about Lee. I don't know the population there, but the blacks that were there, they didn't get on the juror. So it's due 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, which is made without needing to give a reason. But it is illegal to exclude jurors because of their race. Yes, 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 again and again
right on this show. These are incentivized jail house nitches, Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins. And they both testified that you were their cellmate while you were waiting trial, and that you admitted to committing the crime. So jail house nitches, 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 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 reduced senses 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 am, she saw you going into your house in a rage. I
can just picture her making up this story, okay. And other witnesses testified to seeing you at various times that morning, including Catherine Snow, who claimed that she saw you leaning against the car outside the factory where Simpson worked. Clemmy Fleming testified that she got a ride home from Roy Harris to go make a payment at Tardy Furniture, 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 web is getting deep and deeper. So now comes Jack Matthews, an investigator for the Mississippi Highway State Patrol, who testified that based on a ledger sheet at Tardy Furniture,
two hundred eighty seven dollars was missing from the cash straw. Now, they then came up with a theory, the two hundred and fifty five dollars that was found in Connie's home your girlfriend was the same money that was missing for the furniture store. Amazing, because no one else had two hundred dollars in it must have been the same 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, hey, thing, I agree, 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.
A forensic sometimes you have the lad keep him crying, Okay. Well, so then there was a forensic analyst who conducted the gunshot residue test 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 fuck he was talking about, because we know that that's not true. True.
Then Ballish testified, remember him from before, one hundred percent positive that the bullets recovered from the scene had been fired from Simpson's gun. But when testified about the ten and a half size feel a box found in her home, your girlfriend told the story that you had said right, She had purchased for her son in November of ninety five, and that her son took them when he moved to
his father's in ninety six. They could have verified that if they cared exactly, you testified that he would start working at Tardi or July ninety six. What was your testimony with the batteries about, Like I.
Told them, she sent me around to I think it was a tasko at the time who sold her the batteries. Now, my job was to just pick the batteries up and take them out to the country club, and they were going to put them on the golf carts. But you know, pulling off from a tasko to the battery slid out. He hit the payment and one was leaking the other one.
There was nothing wrong with the battery other than you know, the ages got danged up on the concrete, and she said, well, just take them back around there and I'm gonna call and see if they give me some type of deal on them or replace them. If they can't, then you debt. I have to come out of your pain. I said, I have no problem with that, because I was you right. I spoke to time down no offense. But that's a boring ass story. I mean, yes it is.
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 yeah, hand on a can of short yeah, the sister's house to get some bandages, and convenience store to buy some beer and chips. It really sounds like a very average, average day, average day. And you told them that you hadn't committed the crime, they hadn't stolen the gun, and that you hadn't been running near the store at ten am. True.
You also told them, which was again easily verifiable, that you wore size eleven Nike shoes, and that you shot off fireworks the day before the murders and handled the lead car battery. I 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.
Well, I later found that out. You know, I'm just being honest about what I did.
And what about alibi witnesses? Do you have any alibi?
But just at the first trial, only the keys, and they brewed that they didn't want to bring the keys in it because they were so young, you know, and dramatism or anything like that. But there was a few people wo knew my where about them. 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 over here to check on you.
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 word was turned upside down. Put it in this whole and parchment is I cannot describe portion to you. If you didn't have someone on the outside who love and support you, it was hard to maintain in there. Them guys just taking sheets and taking their own live and I've experienced that a lot while I was there. It's a bad place.
So between Trot one and two the jail house niche mister 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, he said that he testified quote to protect myself from
doing time and getting killed end quote. In exchange for his testimony, very important, Hawkins's cocaine charge was dropped and he got house arrests for burglary. I guess that mister Hawkins was a black man. Did they typically give black men house arrest for burglary in Mississippi? No, I need to answer that question. I just wanted to hear you
say it, okay. So while the first conviction was being appealed, a second trial occurred and it was moved to Harrison County, and 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 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 Tarti's
Furniture store. Yes, he testified again, but this time he said that he saw a man running in downtown Winona at nine am instead of ten am, and it Miss Fleming was not with him, which was a totally different story than he had told the first time. Well, so he was trying to have in trouble remembering his own lie,
so he said that an hour later. It is hard when you lie to remember them sometimes, so he said that an hour later, around ten, Fleming had asked him to take her to Tardi Furniture, but she changed her mind. They turned around before even arriving, another change, so nothing was consistent. So Cleming flemings is cousins Latarsha Blissett and Stacy 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 Bertha Tarti had been killed. Mary Ella testified that she and Fleming went to Tardi Furniture, but that Fleming never mentioned seeing you that morning. There's so many holes in this like Swiss cheese.
A few pieces defense also called your defense called O'Dell Homman Junior, who was the brother of Patricia Hammond who testified in the first trial, and Odell mister Holman Junior, who was imprisoned on a provation violation for aggravated assault, testified that Patricia was lying, doing so at his suggestion in an attempt to cash in on the reward. The pieces are just falling off this puzzle, you know they are. Nonetheless, you were convicted again on March thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine,
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 in ordered 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 Tardy. This led to
the jury's exposure to inflammatory and prejudicial evidence. Sure, they thought you were like a mass killer, right, they were probably scared to you. The court also noted that Evans's cross examination included questions that had no basis in fact and that were 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, now, the Mississippi Supreme Court also reversed
your conviction for mister Stewart's murder. The court found the same issues in the first trial, naturally because it was the same prosecutor. They're 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 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 what your defense larder to ask for all his 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 held, was held. This was held in
Montgomery County. Now why is it? Why are we laughing?
Because that's when it started. They moved it out of one owner and it brought it back to one on them. So now all of a sudden, it's okay to try you back? And why knowing okay?
During jury selection, the prosecution used seven of their challenges to get rid of black jurors. The defense objected correctly, contending that it was racially motivated, could have been a coincidence, but sure liked. The prosecution then used its remaining five run three challenges black people as well. The jury was ultimately composed, you guessed it, eleven white jurors and one
black juror. Yes, And the one black person that managed to get on this jury was only selected because again, I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, because you're going to know this before I say it, But it's because
they ran out of parentory challenges. The prosecution couldn't get rid of the last black person, so that person 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. Crazy coincidence, though, say, and this trial was similar to the first two, but this time mister Hammond Junior, remember
Odell Hollmon Junior, 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, Yes, and it's crazy, right because everybody that watches TV knows you can't bribe a witness, right you go to jail
for that shit you do. But they don't. They can drive all the witnesses they want, all they want, and they got better bribes than anybody the outside could possibly have. I don't care if you go to somebody who say I give you a million knowledge, testify the way I want you to, they can say I'll let you out of 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 council capital murder and your sentenced to
death again. Harder believe you're sitting here as many times you even sends to death here. You strike me as easy to love and hard to kill. But that's just me, okay. Anyway, Three years later, on February first, two thousand and seven, here goes again. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the convictions
again and order the new trial. The court found that prosecution was racially discriminatory in 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. So okay, now they try you again. Call me kookie, But I don't think the same prosecutor 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 age this time, the jury consisted of seven white and five black jurors.
They gave me a little hope.
Now, December fifth, two thousand and seven, a mistrial was declared as the jury could not reach a verdict and get ready for another shocker surprise ending seven white members 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 and eight. This time the jury was made up of nine white and three black members. The jury ended up in another mistrial, this time voting eleven
to one to convict. The one dissenting person was a black person. And comes trial number six in summer of twenty ten, and this time the jury was composed of eleven white and one black member, and they found you guilty on all four counts of capital murder again on June eighteenth to twenty ten, and sentenced you to death again. And now we get to the post post post post post. It took me a long time just to say everything.
You had to live its conviction litigation. So you were represented now by ker Weeble and Jerry Lynn Johnson from the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Clinic, and they appealed your conviction. In twenty fourteen, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the convictions and death sentences it The team sought review in the US Supreme Court, and in twenty sixteen, they ordered the Mississippi Supreme Court to review the possibly racially
discriminatory jury selection. In November twenty seventeen, it was ruled I'm getting the chills again. It was ruled by a five to four vote that there was no discrimination. True, the most polite way I can think of to say, this is, what the fuck are they talking about? Well, I think I did say it that way. You would out for hear that, you know, sayd it really is. But your team appealed to the US Supreme Court again, and this is when American Public Media APM started their investigation.
And they did as we talked about the podcast in the Dark, And this podcast began in May twenty eighteen, and it was a big hit, a big, big hit, big hit, and the things they uncovered are shocking. Fleming now said her testimonies and all of the trial were liies. 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 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 assistants. Roy Harris, who was the friend and driver of Clemmy 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, and eventually he thought he was going to get arrested if he didn't say it was you, so he did.
Edward McChristian also recanted his testimony that he was sitting on the porch at seven thirty eight am when you supposedly allegedly walked past his house from dear 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 twenty nineteen, the US Supreme Court reversed your convictions and death SeNSS by a vote of seven to two, 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 prospective jurors in the sixth trials combined. So Sherry Lynn Johnson had made the argument that led to the US Supreme Court decision to reverse. 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 advantished. It was non existent. It never had existed. But that is just proven that it had never existed. The Washington DC law firm of Hogan Lovel's, as well as the friend of the show, the director of the Mississippi Innocence Project, Tucker Carrington, the Mississippi Office of Post Conviction Council got involved, as well as attorney's Rob McDuff we know him, and Henderson Hill. They all began preparing for a possible retroal.
Now you had the Dream Team training team Avengers. Yes, and on December sixteenth, twenty nineteen, you were finally released the home confinement to wait for your seventh trial. This had been almost twenty three years in prison, right right in twenty three. What do you remember about that day?
I was nervous, you know, you know, I'd have been so close to home out of all the years and never made it, you know. And at that time, I was like, I don't see him giving me bail by letting me go home, you know, until they decide what they want to do, whether they want to have a seventh trial or not. But we got in the courtroom, you know, and Doug Gibson didn't even show up that day. He sent his assistant judge Lober talking, and he got started in about Doug the DA not showing up. You know,
I would expect him to be here, you know. And and the more he talked, the better I felt. The more he talked about Doug. And then he said, you know, at this time, you know, I am going to grant Ball.
Where'd you're going? Tex? Back to the plane on plane on to your sisters. Yes, what was your first meal when you got out? Oh? Man?
So I had fried fish, catfish, hush puppet French fried cold saw and he was a funny thing too, because we were in the restroom, me and my brother in law. It has been like seven to eight other guys. So I'm standing at the urinal and you know, related 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 urinar and just
walk away. I said, leat it on that start smelling, you know, everybody, hey, just walk away.
I stepped back.
He 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 being, but you've been going for a long time. I said, yes, I have, and I'm washing my hand. And as my brother in law walked back through the restaurant drive my hands and everything, people were just stopping me. It's gonna be okay. And I guess they went back got and told their wives and everything about what happened in the bathroom, you know,
and people were just telling me it's gonna be okay. Yes, I mean, it was funny and emotion at the same time.
On December sixteenth, twenty nineteen, you were released to home confinement waiting for the seventh trial, like we talked about. And then in January twenty twenty, Evans stepped off the case and the Attorney General's office began reviewing it. So and sure enough, on September fourth, twenty twenty, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced that the charges were going to be dismissed, and you stated, I'm now I'm going to 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 years.
I felt like doing flips, and you know, big guy like me shouldn't be doing flips. But it happened, as I can't even describe here. George Loeper say, you know I dismissed this case with prejudice. Yes, and you know, and at the time the words didn't even 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. Only instance I could think of when it's a good word. Yes. 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 gofund me out there, so.
Yes, we'll have it linked in the bio. So now, mister Flowers, we have a segment of our show that I love the most, which is called Closing Arguments. It works like this. First of all, I again thank you for just being you 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 closing arguments, and you have the mic and you can just talk about anything you think you want to share.
Well, I would first like to thank you all for having me, and I think you also got all right. I really do and look forward to hanging out with you. So all the listeners are I asked that we strive for change, you know, 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, I'm a laid back guy. I'm easy to get it along.
With I would like to send shout out to all the victim's family and I hope one day soon that they find the real guy.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Please support your local innocence projects 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 Clyburn and Kevin Warnis. 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 Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one