Curtis Flowers flanked by sister Priscilla Ward, right, exits the Winston Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss., Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. Flowers' murder conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court for racial bias, and he was granted bond by a circuit judge and is free, with some conditions, for the first time in 22 years. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona who had been tried for murder in six different trials and spent 23 years in prison before the charges were dropped, filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the district attorney who prosecuted him.

Flowers sued Mississippi District Attorney Doug Evans in federal court for a variety of alleged misconducts by Evans and three investigators, including pressuring witnesses to implicate Flowers and ignoring other more likely suspects.

In his most recent trial, Flowers was convicted for the 1996 killings of four people and sentenced to death. His lawyers appealed the conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2019 that Evans, the district attorney, unconstitutionally kept Black people from serving on the jury.

Over Flowers’ six trials, 61 of the 72 jurors were white.

“Curtis Flowers never should have been charged,” said Rob McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice, the Mississippi-based law firm that represented Flowers for years. “The murders were clearly the work of professional criminals. Curtis Flowers was 26 years old with no criminal record and nothing in his history to suggest he would commit a crime like this. The prosecution was tainted throughout by racial discrimination and repeated misconduct. This lawsuit seeks accountability for that misconduct.” 

READ MORE: ‘I am finally free’: Curtis Flowers’ murder charges dropped after six trials

The story of Flowers, whose murder charges were finally dropped in September 2020, earned national attention after it was featured on the popular podcast “In the Dark.” This federal lawsuit was already garnering national headlines on Friday.

“Too many of the innocent people wrongly imprisoned in this country were victims of misconduct by prosecutors and law enforcement officers,” said Vangela M. Wade, president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice. “Most are not held accountable. While Curtis Flowers was trapped behind bars for nearly a quarter century, Doug Evans has faced virtually no consequences for his crusade to convict this innocent man and for his discriminatory manipulation of the legal system. We are pursuing this lawsuit to bring some level of accountability.”

Editor’s note: Vangela M. Wade is a member of Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Adam Ganucheau, as Mississippi Today's editor-in-chief, oversees the newsroom and works with the editorial team to fulfill our mission of producing high-quality journalism in the public interest. Adam has covered politics and state government for Mississippi Today since February 2016. A native of Hazlehurst, Adam has worked as a staff reporter for AL.com, The Birmingham News and The Clarion-Ledger and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Adam earned his bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Mississippi.