美国国家公共电台 NPR Supreme Court Strikes Down Conviction Of Mississippi Man On Death Row For 22 Years（在线收听）

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We turn now to news out of the Supreme Court. The court has struck down the conviction of an African American death row inmate who was prosecuted six times for the same crime and by the same prosecutor. The Mississippi Supreme Court said three times that the prosecutor had a history of prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias in jury selection. This could determine the fate of a Mississippi man who has been in jail for nearly a quarter of a century. NPR's Nina Totenberg is in our studios to talk more about this.

Hi, Nina.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Hi, Rachel.

MARTIN: Explain the case for us.

TOTENBERG: Well, the crime was a horrific crime. It was the murder of four people at a furniture store in Winona, Miss. It's a tiny, 5,000-person town; 53 to 46% white - black-white, so there's a black majority. And Curtis Flowers was arrested. As far as I can tell, there was - you know, there were no eyewitnesses to this crime, at least living. And there wasn't a great DNA kind of case.

MARTIN: Right.

TOTENBERG: And he was - the first - he was convicted three times. Three times, the Mississippi Supreme Court said that the prosecutor had committed prosecutorial misconduct - and not some trivial things, things like lying about evidence that didn't exist and discrimination in the selection of juries.

MARTIN: Then how is he prosecuted three additional times?

TOTENBERG: Well, the next two times, it's the same prosecutor. There are more - in each case, there are more than one black juror. And the jury deadlocks. And then, in the sixth case, there's only one, and he's convicted. And the Mississippi Supreme Court upholds that conviction, and the Supreme Court today reversed the conviction because of jury discrimination.

MARTIN: So this was a 7-2 decision. The dissenters here were Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch. Justice Thomas, I understand, wrote the opinion. He is the only black justice on the court. What did he have to say about this?

TOTENBERG: Well, Justice Thomas has always maintained that discrimination in jury selection is just not something the court should be involved in determining and that it's not for the defense to raise this - that it's only the jurors who can object to being discriminated against. Today, he wrote an opinion for himself and Justice Thomas, and he said - he noted that the court had at least once before had this case before it and sent it back for re-evaluation. And he said that he couldn't see that they should have looked at it a second time. And he said the court's action only encourages the litigation and re-litigation of criminal trials in the media to the potential detriment of all parties, including defendants. The media often seeks to titillate rather than educate and inform. And that's been his position. His dissenting opinion is, like, twice as long as the majority opinion - written, I should say by Justice Kavanaugh.

MARTIN: So what does this mean for the man at the center of it all, Curtis Flowers? Does he go free?

TOTENBERG: No. The - Mississippi can try him again. I don't think they probably can try him in Winona or with that prosecutor. That would not be wise. But if they think that they have a good case, they can try him again. He's been in prison for 22 years. These are tough cases for states to decide when there's an old case to try to see if they have anything that they can persuade a jury that this guy is guilty. And, you know, sometimes, they just have to bite the bullet and say, no, we don't. And we've got to let him go.

MARTIN: We'll see. NPR's Nina Totenberg on the latest decision out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nina, thank you. We appreciate it.

TOTENBERG: Thank you.

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