Mississippi to pay Curtis Flowers $500,000 after 23 years of wrongful imprisonment The man, who spent nearly half his life on death row, will receive the state’s maximum compensation amount. Share this story USA Today Curtis Flowers will be paid $500,000 by Mississippi after being wrongfully incarcerated in the state for 23 years. The Mississippi 5th Circuit Judge George Mitchell announced the ruling this week, saying that Flowers should be given the state’s maximum compensation amount. Flowers, who is 50 years old, spent nearly half of his life on death row after being convicted in the 1996 shooting deaths of four people. According to USA Today, Flowers worked at the Tardy Furniture Store in Winona up until two weeks before the shootings took place there. The four victims — store owner Bertha Tardy and employees Robert Golden, Carmen Rigby and Derrick Stewart — were fatally shot in the head.