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... The long record of Flowers' trials stretching back more than 20 years shows District Attorney Doug Evans' "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals," with the goal of an all-white jury, Kavanaugh wrote.
In Flowers' sixth trial, the jury was made up of 11 whites and one African American. Prosecutor Evans struck five black prospective jurors.
In the earlier trials, three convictions were tossed out, including one when the prosecutor improperly excluded African Americans from the jury. In the second trial, the judge chided Evans for striking a juror based on race. Two other trials ended when jurors couldn't reach unanimous verdicts.
"The numbers speak loudly," Kavanaugh said in a summary of his opinion that he read in the courtroom, noting that Evans had removed 41 of the 42 prospective black jurors over the six trials. "We cannot ignore that history."
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas called Kavanaugh's opinion "manifestly incorrect" and wrote that Flowers "presented no evidence whatsoever of purposeful race discrimination." Justice Neil Gorsuch joined most of Thomas' opinion.
... Defense lawyers have argued that witness statements and physical evidence against Flowers are too weak to convict him. A jailhouse informant who claimed Flowers had confessed to him recanted in recorded telephone conversations with American Public Media's "In the Dark" podcast. A separate appeal is pending in state court questioning Flowers' actual guilt, citing in part evidence that reporters for "In the Dark" detailed.
"A seventh trial would be unprecedented, and completely unwarranted given both the flimsiness of the evidence against him and the long trail of misconduct that has kept him wrongfully incarcerated all these years. We hope that the state of Mississippi will finally disavow Doug Evans' misconduct, decline to pursue yet another trial and set Mr. Flowers free," Sheri Lynn Johnson, who represented Flowers at the Supreme Court, said in an emailed statement....
White Mississippi bigots lose, again, even with this uber-con SCOTUS, awww.
with you?
FACT: I’ve never created any content espousing my views on the 2nd Amendment or Islam. The Left pretending I inspired a mosque massacre in…New Zealand because I believe black America can do it without government hand outs is the reachiest reach of all reaches!! LOL!” ...
That joke just ain't getting old.