The Case of Curtis Flowers Analysis (Essay Example)

Winona, a small town in Mississippi was ripped apart by the actions of one man. The action of murder. Brought to light with the In the Dark Podcast hosted by Madeleine Baran. With the evidence in the podcast it proves the innocence of a man charged with the death penalty. Many people believe that Curtis Flowers committed the quadruple murder, this is false because Doug Evans, the District Attorney, is corrupt and deceptive; with lacking concrete evidence, and poor witness testimonies. 

Doug Evans during the Flowers case brought many lies when he came into office. As a district attorney your job is to uphold the law with the utmost integrity. This was not how Evans ran the stand. He began his corrupt reign by ignoring the evidence pointing to four other suspects. A likely suspect to commit the crime was Marcus Presley and a co-perpetrator Lasamuel Gamble from Birmingham, Alabama. These “Birmingham boys” committed other crimes like the Tardy Furniture store killings. The boys were linked to the crime with the bullets and gun, the gun found in the possession of the Birmingham boys matched the bullet casings found at the crime scene. Presley was involved in 5 robberies armed with a .38 caliber revolver that jammed regularly as seen on video camera footage during a previous pawn shop robbery. Additionally, the pair claimed to have “hit a lick” while they were reported to be in Winona at the time of the quadruple murder at Tardy’s Furniture Store. Lastly, Evans was reported for pressuring the people testifying to lie on the stand. Clemmie Fleming a key route witness testified with DA, Doug Evans, that she saw Curtis running away from the furniture store after the time of the murders. She admitted years later to the In the Dark podcast that she “didn’t remember what day it was”. She also stated to the podcast that the prosecutors “didn’t care what day” as long as she saw him. With the withdrawal of the witness testimony Curtis Flowers should’ve been free but yet again the corrupt DA’s reign continues to draw on. 

Evidence presented during the Flowers case was circumstantial evidence that could apply to anyone in Mississippi. For evidence to be “direct evidence” it must speak for itself and “circumstantial evidence” suggests a fact or implication that the person committed a crime. A pair of bloody shoe prints were found on the floor of the store. The shoes were later identified as the Grant Hill Fila shoe. This Fila shoe was very popular at the time because of Fila signing an endorsement with Grant Hill who is considered the greatest of all time to come from Duke University (Kim Kazemi). So for a jury to say these shoes that everyone owns immediately made one man guilty is a serious question to the integrity of the jurors. Additionally, circumstantial evidence was used in the case that applied to more than one suspect but once again DA Doug Evans only wanted to bag Curtis Flowers. 

While it may be true that Curtis Flowers committed the quadruple murder, it does not necessarily take into consideration that Doug Evans needed to revive his career. Doug Evans was running for office in 1991 during this time he made many tough-on-crime messages. A message claimed he would “work tirelessly” to “convict criminals”. This statement ruled his thoughts because he attempted to put an innocent man behind bars to follow that pledge. A judge interviewed during the In the Dark podcast remarked if you can’t convict someone with an upcoming election you're less likely to make it into office (Parker Yesko). He won the election for District Attorney and stayed in office for nearly two decades because he convicted Curtis. As well as because once elected into DA it’s very unlikely to get voted out of office. Evans needed to convict Flowers to show that he was capable. Doug Evans was not the honest christian man he set out to be, he tried the same man for murder six times. Multiple prosecutions do happen but they are very rare. The case of Flowers was because they had five trials that never ended so only one ever happened. The first three trials were thrown out because of critical mistakes in the prosecution. These critical mistakes were all the doing of Doug Evans. For instance he didn’t give everyone access to all the evidence, or he changed the jurors to favor his personal vendetta. Trials four and five never reached a verdict and ended in mistrial. The sixth and final trial ended in a verdict of guilty. But it took six tries and 23 years to barely get the majority of votes to convict Curtis Flowers. Lastly, Curtis Flowers’ defense asked the judge to have Doug Evans removed from the case. The judge later asked Doug Evans himself if he believes there to be any reason he should be removed from the trial. Evans said “Not that I'm aware of, Your Honor”and with this single statement the judge overruled Flowers' Defenses appeal to remove Evans from the case and he went on to give him the death penalty. The fact that the judge took his word for it shows the amount of corruption and lack of accountability that allowed Evans to get away with charging the wrong man for a quadruple murder. 

In light of information laid out during the investigation by the In the Dark podcast Curtis Flowers did not commit the murders. The corrupt District Attorney, Doug Evans broke the judicial system and used the Flowers case to leverage keeping his position of power. The non-incriminating evidence used during the case was spun by the prosecution to frame Curtis. Nearly two decades of Flowers' life was spent fighting for his life in the justice system with only Doug Evans to blame.