WINONA – Tempers continue to flare as the Curtis Flowers’ murder trial entered its second week at the Montgomery County Courthouse. While some witnesses, most of them testifying for the sixth time, were clearly exhausted and frustrated, Judge Joseph H. Loper repeatedly told attorneys for both sides to treat each with respect and civility.
Monday morning also saw the defense introduce several motions to the court including a motion to exclude any testimony referring to the gunshot residue found on the hands of Curtis Flowers during the initial murder investigation, as well as a motion for Judge Loper to recuse himself from this case. The charges against one juror, James Bibbs, were dismissed, while the second juror, an alternate, Mary Annette Purnell, plead guilty and is now serving a 15-month prison sentence.
Both those jurors are black.
Loper denied both motions.
The defense argued that testimony about the gunshot residue was not a “valid science” and should not be used in this trial. They also said the amount of gunshot primer residue found on Flowers’ hand was too insignificant to be used in this trial.
Loper said he was “satisfied” that gunshot residue is considered “scientific data,” following the testimony of David Ballash, a firearms expert, on Saturday. Loper also said that in the three cases where Flowers’ case went before the Mississippi Supreme Court, the issue of gunshot residue was never challenged by the Court, therefore, he said, “I have every faith and confidence in the Mississippi Supreme Court,” and if there was an issue with the gunshot residue they would have mentioned it.
The defense also asked Judge Loper to recuse himself from this trial due to the 2008 trial, also held in Montgomery County, that resulted in the arrest of two jurors for perjury.
The defense argued that since Loper was personally involved in that case witnessing the perjury and having the jurors arrested, he was thereby biased in this case.
Loper said he was not and denied that motion.
Later that morning, as the defense sought to discredit witnesses who claimed they saw Flowers either near or around the area of Tardy Furniture the morning of the murders, some witnesses replied with frankness and hostility, causing Judge Loper to instruct one witness to say nothing further to defense attorney Allison Steiner.
Mary Jeanette Flemming testified that she dropped her car at Weed Brothers about 9 a.m., on July 16, 1996, and on her way home, she saw Flowers. Weed Brothers is located right behind Tardy Furniture store in Winona.
Flemming testified that she had known Flowers for years and they walked side by side down the street.
Flemming said when she saw him, Flowers had on brown pants, a white shirt and a gray jacket. When cross-examined by the defense, Allison Steiner, Flemming maintained that he was wearing brown pants.
Steiner then had Flemming to read her testimony out loud from a previous trial’s transcripts where she stated that Flowers had on black pants when she saw him. Flemming insisted that it was written down wrong and that Flowers was wearing brown pants.
When Steiner asked Flemming about the $30,000 reward offered for information in the Tardy slayings, Flemming said her coming forward “was not about money. Money don’t faze me,” she said. “I don’t do things for money.”
When Steiner asked Flemming if she had ever sued her employer for workman’s compensation, Flemming said no. Steiner also asked Flemming if she was receiving disability or a Social Security check. Flemming became angry and told Steiner to “stay out of her business, that‘s my business” and “don’t ever come at me like that again.”
Judge Loper told Flemming not to speak again in court until after he had made his ruling.
When Steiner produced Flemming’s medical records, to which District Attorney Doug Evans objected, she asked Flemming if she had secured a law firm to file a workman’s compensation claim against her former employer. After Flemming saw the medical records she said “she remembered that she did.”
Steiner also asked Flemming if she had ever been hospitalized, Flemming said it was not because she was “crazy,” but because she had two back surgeries.
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