WINONA – After reviewing a motion requesting a seventh trial for convicted murderer Curtis Giovanni Flowers, Judge Joseph H. Loper, Jr., has denied Flowers a new trial.
On June 19, at his sixth murder trial in Montgomery County, Flowers, 42, was found guilty of the murders of Tardy Furniture store owner, Bertha Tardy and three of her employees, Carmen Rigby, Robert Golden and Derrick “BoBo” Stewart, in 1996. All four victims had been shot in the head. Golden, the only black victim, had been shot twice.
In their motion, Flowers’ attorneys listed 44 different reasons they said Flowers deserved a new trial including the number of potential black jurors on the panel. The defense stated that during voir dire, the venire makeup consisted of 89 white jurors and 67 blacks.
After the conducting a group voir dire, individual voir dire and after several venire members were excused for cause, Flowers’ defense team moved the court to quash the jury panel and declare a mistrial because in their view, the jury did not have a sufficient number of blacks on the panel.
In his motion denying Flowers’ request, Judge Loper individually specified why each black juror was stricken, namely because they admitted in open court they were either a relative or a friend of Flowers, knew his family or because they felt they could not sit in judgment of Flowers.
Also, in his response to the number of black jurors on the potential panel, Loper said Flowers’ attorneys had the constitutional right to have his sixth trial tried in a different county, as they have done twice before. But they failed to exercise that right in the sixth trial held in Winona, the location of the quadruple murders.
Loper said because of that, Flowers “should not be heard to complain about the racial makeup of the jury, since the overwhelming majority of the members of his race stated they could not sit in judgment of him because of kinships, friendships, and family ties.”
Flowers is now on Death Row, and his attorneys are expected to appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
See “DA doubts there will be a 7th trial for Curtis Flowers”
Be the first to comment