JACKSON, Miss. Death row inmate Curtis Giovanni Flowers has won a new trial for killing four people at a Winona furniture store because prosecutors sought to keep blacks off his Montgomery County jury.
The Mississippi Supreme Court decision came today (Thursday).


Flowers had argued before the justices in a February hearing that race discrimination in the selection of the jury cast doubt on the fairness of his trial.

Flowers, 35, who is black, was convicted in 2004 of capital murder in the deaths of four people during a shooting spree at a Winona furniture store in 1996. Death penalty cases are automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Twice before, Flowers was convicted of capital murder involving one of the victims and each time his conviction and death sentence were thrown out on appeal.

In 2004, Flowers was convicted of all four murders _ store owner Bertha Tardy, 59; store employees Derrick Stewart, 16, and Carmen Rigby, 45; and delivery man Robert Golden, 42. Flowers also was convicted of robbing the store of at least 400-dollars that was in the cash drawer.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, said the trial judge erred in upholding prosecutors’ peremptory strikes exercised against two blacks in the jury pool.

Since 1986, prosecutors have been barred from disqualifying potential jurors based on their race. One thing prosecutors must show is that they had a race neutral reason to excuse a potential juror.

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