03 Mar Curtis Flowers to Receive $500,000 for Wrongful Imprisonment

After 23 years behind bars – much of it in solitary – and enduring six trials for the same capital murders he did not commit, Mississippi is finally helping Curtis Flowers rebuild his life. The state of Mississippi will pay Curtis Flowers $500,000 for his wrongful imprisonment. Mississippi Circuit Judge George Mitchell ordered the compensation on March 2, 2021. Under the judgment, the state will pay Flowers $50,000 a year for the next 10 years. The state did not oppose the judgment.

The Mississippi Center for Justice started defending Flowers after the Supreme Court overturned his guilty verdict in the sixth trial. MCJ then helped Flowers get released on bail so he could be with his family as he awaited a potential seventh trial. MCJ also filed a motion to remove District Attorney Doug Evans from the case due to his gross prosecutorial misconduct in Flowers’ six prior trials. He eventually recused himself. All charges against Flowers were dismissed in September 2020 by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch.

“As we have learned more about this case in recent years, it is now widely acknowledged that Curtis Flowers did not commit this crime. He clearly qualified for compensation under the law. It is no surprise that the Attorney General’s office has acknowledged this,” said Flowers’ lawyer, Rob McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice. “Five hundred thousand dollars is not nearly enough money. Unfortunately, that’s all that’s allowed.”

MCJ is proud of our work to free Flowers and to have him awarded this modest compensation. Prosecutorial misconduct is real, and Curtis Flowers isn’t its only victim. The fight isn’t over.