Mississippi man convicted four times for shooting four people to death receives $500,000 from the state; gets married
Three of his convictions were thrown out by the state Supreme Court and one conviction was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Credit: AP
FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, file photo, Curtis Flowers flanked by sister Priscilla Ward, right, exits the Winston Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss. The NFL says it is honoring Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who was imprisoned more than 22 years. He was freed in late 2019, months after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the last of his several convictions in a quadruple murder case. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Mississippi told to pay $500,000 to wrongfully imprisoned man
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A judge is ordering the state of Mississippi to pay $500,000 to a Black man who was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 22 years and was tried six times in a quadruple murder case.
Curtis Flowers was released from prison in December 2019, months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a district attorney had excluded Black jurors from his trials. Flowers had spent years on death row.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in September that she would not try Flowers a seventh time in the 1996 slayings and a robbery that took place at a furniture store in Winona. He had been in custody since 1997.
Mississippi to pay Curtis Flowers $500K for 20-year wrongful imprisonment I believe it should have been more, but I feel good, Flowers remarked
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Curtis Flowers has been awarded $500,000 from the state of Mississippi after being wrongfully imprisoned for more than 20 years.
theGrio reported charges against Flowers were dropped in September 2020 after he had already spent 23 years in federal prison. Flowers was initially released from custody in December 2019. He was accused of being responsible for the 1996 shooting deaths of
Bertha Tardy,
Bobo Stewart at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Miss.
“Today, I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for nearly 23 years,” Flowers said in a statement. “I’ve been asked if I ever thought this day would come… With a family that never gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would.”
Mississippi must pay $500,000 to man wrongfully incarcerated for 23 years Jessica Schladebeck
The state of Mississippi has been ordered to pay its maximum compensation amount of $500,000 to Curtis Flowers, who has spent nearly half of his life behind bars for a quadruple murder he did not commit.
Mississippi 5th Circuit Judge George Mitchell made the ruling on Tuesday, according to The Clarion Ledger.
The 50-year-old, a Black man from Winona, had been tried six different times between 1997 and 2010 in the shooting deaths of four people in 1996. He spent more 23 years behind bars before he was released from prison in December 2019, after the Supreme Court concluded Black people were intentionally excluded from the jury pool during his trial in 2010.