No. 17-9572October Term 2018Decided Jun 21, 2019
Flowers v. Mississippi
This case asked whether Curtis Flowers’s murder conviction from his sixth trial could stand when the same prosecutor had repeatedly struck Black jurors across Flowers’s earlier trials and again removed most Black prospective jurors at the sixth trial.
Case status
- Current stage
- Decided
- Latest event
- Decision released Jun 21, 2019
- What it's about
This case asked whether Curtis Flowers’s murder conviction from his sixth trial could stand when the same prosecutor had repeatedly struck Black jurors across Flowers’s earlier trials and again removed most Black prospective jurors at the sixth trial. The Supreme Court held that the trial court clearly erred in finding no racial discrimination in the prosecutor’s strike of a Black prospective juror.
Question presented
1. WHETHER THE MISSISSIPPI SUPREME COURT ERRED IN HOW IT APPLIED BATSON v. KENTUCKY, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) IN THIS CASE. 2. Whether a prosecutor's history of adjudicated purposeful race discrimination may be dismissed as irrelevant when assessing the credibility of his proffered explanations for peremptory strikes against minority prospective jurors?
- Case path
Supreme Court of Mississippi / Decision released Jun 21, 2019
- Area
Decided Supreme Court case
Timing
Decided June 21, 2019
The Court released its decision on June 21, 2019 without hearing oral argument.
Related cases
Grounding
- Grounding
- Primary-source trail available.
- Note
- Plain-English explainer. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.
- Checked
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Methodology