The Supreme Court on Wednesday sounded ready to overturn a Mississippi murder conviction based on racial bias during jury selection.
selection — asked whether the defense attorney in the Flowers trial had also excluded jurors, and what the race was of those potential jurors.
In July 1996, four employees of a furniture store were found shot to death in Winona, Miss. Evans charged Flowers with the killings in part because he had been fired from the store a few days before. “The history is relevant,” she said. It is “a history of a desire for an all-white jury, a history of willingness to violate the Constitution, and a history of willingness to make false statements to a trial court.” She argued that even if the justices focus just on the sixth trial, they should be highly skeptical of the prosecutor’s reasons for excluding black prospective jurors.
When selecting a jury, Evans had peppered potential black jurors with numerous questions in an effort to find a nonracial reason to exclude them, Johnson said, but accepted potential white jurors after asking only a question or two.
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