An extensive investigation and analysis by APM Reports found that during Doug Evans' tenure, Evans' office has been much more likely to use strikes in jury selection against African Americans. They had to wear adult shoes back then. Part of the reason this appeal brief has taken three years to complete is that the old Mississippi (represented by Doug Evans and his associates in Grenada) have refused to hand over critically important information to the Flowers team. Unfortunately, the officer who made these claims didn’t take names or record actual comments, so this allegation is open to question. As a sheriff's deputy was handcuffing him, Hallmon had asked "if they were all dead."
In the Dark, Season And he wore his tennis shoes. At trial, Evans and investigators said that Flowers was the only main suspect from the beginning of the investigation. But the appeal demonstrates in detail how the state manipulated hapless witnesses. Although the appeal doesn’t make this argument, it could be theorized that Doyle and his brother were paid to kill one of the four victims and, after making a botched job of the hit, ended up eliminating all the witnesses as well. 's office to Flowers' lawyers is incomplete and appears, in places, to be inaccurate. He filed no written response to the motion. This shift was noticeable in the courtroom. Curtis Flowers didn’t own a car, which explains why the state’s theory of the case involves so much walking and running. But as the defense argues in the appeal, Bertha Tardy had good cause to be angry with Flowers, not vice versa.
Veal gave his statement on March 11, 1997, according to a document turned over by the state as part of the Flowers case. Hallmon’s story of the confession had been key evidence in later trials, but he told the podcast on a contraband cellphone from behind bars that his story was ‘a bunch of fantasies, a bunch of lying.’
"I helped them. Lott never testified at trial. The first piece of evidence to crumble was the winding route Doug Evans told jurors that Curtis Flowers walked that July morning.
A lawyer for the state Department of Public Safety told APM Reports that the agency has no record of the gun being at the Mississippi Crime Lab. See below for documents related to the APM Reports analysis of D.A. It is that flimsy. Crucially, the podcast recorded jailhouse informant Odell Hallmon in 2017 and 2018 recanting his testimony that Flowers had confessed to him. Hallmon’s story of the confession had been key evidence in later trials, but he told the podcast on a contraband cellphone from behind bars that his story was “a bunch of fantasies, a bunch of lying.” The witnesses the state has used to tie him to the crime scene are almost comically lacking in credibility and contradict one another at every turn. There may be people who can control a room like that, but Curtis Flowers is not one of them. Patricia Hallmon lived next-door to Flowers at the time of the murders. "They didn't put that in the paper," he said. Flowers was arrested in Texas in January 1997 after investigators Wayne Miller and John Johnson provided an affidavit to the court alleging Flowers committed the murders. In April 2014, Hallmon tried to run over a sheriff's deputy with his car. Evans imbibed this doctrine as a child but, unlike many White Mississippians, he has never questioned the culture that shaped him. … Season 1 looked at the abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the accountability of sheriffs in solving crime. Flowers started playing with the gun and it went off. Flowers signed a waiver of extradition proceedings on January 15, 1997, and was brought back to Mississippi. Snow told law enforcement that she saw a man that morning in a parking lot in Winona — the same parking lot where Doyle Simpson claimed his gun had been stolen. She was convicted by a jury on eight of those counts and sentenced the following year. ", "'Cause I didn't know it was gonna get this, you know, this serious, and I'd have to go to court and, you know, and people criticize you and all that. There's one critical aspect of the Curtis Flowers case that we haven't looked at yet -- the makeup of the juries. Back then everybody wore them. The Mississippi man, who was freed in 2019 after nearly 23 years in prison, sues the district attorney who prosecuted him six times in the killings of four people at a small-town furniture store. ", Hallmon said, of Flowers, "He ain't even act like no violent person. It’s current. Law enforcement never found the gun Hallmon used in the killings. McDuff cited caselaw that held this standard was met and bail would be required if “a reasonable doubt could be entertained.” To assess this question, McDuff raked over the details of the case, referencing a thick bound volume of twenty-eight tabbed exhibits. The appeal doesn’t go there because proving that Doyle Simpson was the trigger man isn’t the point of their argument. ", "If they want to give me something, I'll take it,", court records from the Montgomery County Chancery Court, record of Fleming being arrested and released, records at the Montgomery County Circuit Court, record of a dismissed case against Fleming, indicted on 16 counts of federal tax fraud, criminal and civil records regarding Doyle Simpson, documents related to the APM Reports analysis of D.A. These were always the largest cases and the toughest assignments. That's the only way I will go. But I don't know all that. Hallmon pleaded guilty to the remaining charge — possession of firearm by a felon — and spent a year in prison. In the 1990s, Hemphill lived at times on the east side of Winona, not far from where Jeffery Armstrong said he later found a .380 pistol. Below are the findings and source notes from our investigation, including links to key documents in the case and source material from other findings that weren't included in the podcast. Making Doyle Simpson the prime suspect removes most of the problems that have dogged the state’s case from the outset. You may wonder how it could take three years to compose an appeal brief, especially in a case so open-and-shut that a jury took only 29 minutes to render a guilty verdict. Evans badgered Black persons with distant ties to the Flowers family, but paid no attention to White persons who knew people close to the defendant. Investigators also talked with Bertha Tardy's daughter, Roxanne Ballard, according to available records.
"It's been a long time," she said.
Kyle Rittenhouse Jury Seated: Of 20 Jurors, Only One Is ... APM Reports obtained public records on Hemphill in Mississippi, from the Winona Police Department, Kilmichael Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Montgomery County Chancery, Justice, and Circuit court clerks, Grenada County Jail, the Office of the District Attorney of the Fifth Circuit Court District and the Mississippi Department of Corrections; in Tennessee, from the Memphis Police Department, Shelby County Sheriff's Office, Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; and in Indiana, from the Indianapolis Police Department, Marion Police Department, Marion County Sheriff's Office, Grant County Sheriff's Office, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, Huntington County Sheriff’s Office, Marion City Court, Center Township Small Claims Court of Marion County, Indiana, the superior courts of Marion, Grant, Hamilton and Huntington counties, the Indiana State Police and the Indiana Department of Correction. APM Reports asked. According to the available documents from the law enforcement investigation, the first person who mentioned Curtis Flowers to law enforcement was Tom Tardy.
The suit alleged that Johnson, in the course of arresting a man named Lonnie Blaylock for public drunkenness, punched, choked and kicked Blaylock in the head. Season One focused on the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. APM Reports obtained records from the police departments in Winona, Vaiden and Greenwood, the sheriff's offices in Montgomery, Carroll and Leflore counties, the chancery, justice and circuit court clerks in Carroll and Montgomery counties, the Montgomery County Emergency Operations Center, the Carroll-Montgomery County Regional Correctional Facility and the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Herod said another officer went to get the gun from Armstrong and then gave it to the D.A. I respect Alan Bean for his never-ending work he did for Mr Davis and now for Curtis Flowers. She was buying her children some. APM reports found complete jury selection transcripts for 89 of those 225 trials during Evans' tenure. Given the state of the evidence, the judge concluded that the proof was not evident and the presumption not great. When other factors were the same — when jurors answered questions the same way — white people were far more likely to be chosen for the jury than black people. Flowers' sixth trial ended in a conviction and death sentence. This testimony was important not only because it helped the state prove that Flowers wore Fila Grant Hill shoes, but also because law enforcement had found an empty shoebox for Fila Grant Hill shoes at the home where Flowers lived with his girlfriend and her children. Curtis Flowers speaks with reporters on Dec. 16, 2019, as he exits the Winston-Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss. The lawsuit does not say how much money Flowers is seeking, leaving that decision to a jury. In the fifth trial, the jury deadlocked again, this time 11-1 in favor of guilt. And yet dozens of White jurors have chosen to convict. APM Reports interviewed Patricia Hallmon at her home in Jackson. Latham never testified at trial. Yeah, my children had a pair. APM Reports also located separate public records about Patricia Hallmon at the Montgomery County Justice Court. The second photo lineup included a photo of Curtis Flowers. The strange case of Lawanda Williams, a Mississippi College law student serving as an intern for the defense team, received the attention it deserves. Harris said he was afraid Johnson was going to "have somebody do something to me or something like that, because he was trying to get me all messed up." Opening arguments in the trial, which is expected to last around two weeks, are set to begin on Tuesday. A final reason for the delay is that defense counsel worked hard and long for permission to present what might be the most damning indictment of Evans to emerge in the course of this ancient saga. I don't know all of that. Johnson returned to the Winona Police Department in 1979 and rose through the ranks to become police chief. After months of reporting, APM Reports had gathered 508 pages of public records on Hallmon. Flowers had never confessed to the murders, he said. "I am 100 percent certain that these bullets were fired from one gun," he said. These recent disclosures of evidence of Flowers’s innocence have exposed a much wider audience to the injustice in Flowers’s case and shifted broader public opinion over to the long-held view in the African-American community in Montgomery County that Flowers was innocent. Also, a special report on Covid-19 in the Mississippi Delta. 's office — he thinks it was John Johnson — sent the gun to the state crime lab. And although our Impact Litigation project generally focused on civil rights and voting rights issues, I agreed because this case crystallized a foundational promise of American law: that our jury system deliver equal justice to all. Reilly Morse President/CEO, Leveling Power in the Courtroom - Some Reflections. I drove up from Biloxi for the hearing. Civil rights advocates asked federal appeals court judges Friday to revive a lawsuit they filed against a Mississippi prosecutor accused of routinely rejecting Black jurors in criminal cases simply because of their race. When asked what made him 100 percent certain about his findings in the Flowers case, Balash said, "The fact that I've been doing this for an awful long time, and I know what an identification looks like. ", APM Reports asked whether Connie was buying shoes for her children or for Flowers. Although our organization had not previously defended someone charged with a capital crime, McDuff had significant experience in criminal defense and capital defense cases. McDuff also described three suspects who were much more likely perpetrators than Curtis Flowers, one of whom was discovered by the podcast reporters and all of whom were largely ignored by the District Attorney and his investigators. APM Reports obtained the 1985 lease agreement for Tardy Furniture from the Montgomery County Chancery Clerk's office, as well as records of several civil suits filed by Tardy Furniture between 1996 and 1999 from the Montgomery County Justice Court. "He wore all kinds," she said. He ain't act like no bad person around me. Jones clearly testified that there was no bloody footprint when he arrived (he was adamant on this point) but that when he returned at 10:20 with the local police chief, the footprint was plainly evident. 's office. Hallmon was the state's star witness. If you couldn’t get a final conviction in six attempts, it’s over. D.A. 's investigator John Johnson. Nat Latham told APM Reports that his wife had felt pressured by law enforcement. In a major departure, the Office of Capital Defense in Jackson, Mississippi reached out to the Death Penalty Project at Cornell University’s Law School for assistance. While conducting that search at the Winona Police Department, APM Reports found one document directly related to the Tardy Furniture murders.
Using In the Dark Podcast in the Classroom – Engaging and ... Remove Doug Evans from the legal equation and this case crumbles under its own weight. There are no scientific standards for matching a bullet to a gun. "Everything was all make-believe," Mr. Hallmon said in the interview. There’s more. APM Reports also obtained court records from the Montgomery County Chancery Court regarding the estate of Bertha Tardy. That’s a perfect description of Simpson’s car.
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