September 9, 2020

We advocates of criminal justice reform note with bittersweet satisfaction that Curtis Flowers was released the other day in Mississippi.  Mr Flowers is a black man who was tried 6 different times for a ghastly and brutal murder and served 23 years in prison.  You can go to CNN, Law & Crime, or the Washington Post to read details about Mr. Flowers' ordeal.  I, however, would like to focus in on Doug Evans who tried Mr. Flowers 6 different times.  Mr. Flowers was condemned by the Supreme Court of the United States for discriminating against Mr. Flowers by striking every potential African-American witness from the jury pool. During each of these trial--several which ended as mistrials--there was not one African American on the jury!  The Supreme Court decided that Mr. Evans purposely excluded black Americans in order to get a favorable verdict.  Yet Mr. Evans never was held accountable for his deliberate attempts to pervert justice.  We want justice for the victims of violent crimes. But too often, there is no justice, no accountability for the prosecutors who hide exculpatory evidence from the defense, who know that police are committing perjury, or who stack the jury against the accused. Everyone needs to be held accountable, including the police, the prosecutors, and the correctional officers.