Curtis Flowers, American Wrongly Imprisoned for 22 Years, Dies at 56 | Mississippi

Curtis Flowers, a black man who spent more than 22 years in prison and was on death row in Mississippi before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence, has died. He was 56 years old.

Flowers’ family confirmed that he died Wednesday at his home in Mississippi, attorney Rob McDuff told The Associated Press on Thursday.

No cause of death was given, said McDuff, who was part of Flowers’ legal team.

Flowers was 26 when he was arrested several months after the July 1996 shooting deaths of four people at a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.

At the time, prosecutors described him as a disgruntled former employee who was seeking revenge against the store owner because she fired him and withheld most of his pay to cover the cost of merchandise he damaged. Nearly $300 was found missing after the murders.

Flowers was tried six times for these murders. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the high court’s 7-2 decision in 2019 that the dismissal of prospective Black jurors deprived Flowers of a fair trial.

During the sixth trial in 2010, Flowers was sentenced to death. There were 11 white jurors and one black juror who considered the case after prosecutor Doug Evans struck five black potential jurors.

Flowers remained in jail for six months after the Supreme Court’s decision because he remained indicted. He was ultimately released in December 2019 after a judge set bail.

Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in September 2020.

“Today, I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for almost 23 years,” Flowers said in a statement. “I was asked if I thought this day would come. I was lucky enough to have a family that never gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would.”