139 S. Ct. 2228 (2019)
In 1996, Bertha Tardy, Robert Golden, Derrick Stewart, and Carmen Rigby were murdered at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.1 Winona is a small town in northern Mississippi with a population of about 5,000 that is approximately 53 percent black.2
Curtis Flowers, who is black, was charged with the four murders.3 The same white prosecutor represented the State of Mississippi in all six trials of the case.4
Flowers faced trial six times.5 In the first trial, the State used peremptory strikes to remove all five black prospective jurors, and an all-white jury convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death.6 The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct.7
In the second trial, the State attempted to strike all five black prospective jurors, but the trial court seated one after finding a proffered reason pretextual.8 The jury with one black juror convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death, but the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed again for prosecutorial misconduct.9
In the third trial, the State used all fifteen peremptory strikes against black prospective jurors.10 The jury with one black juror convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death, and the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed, describing a strong prima facie case of racial discrimination in the jury selection process.11
The fourth trial ended in a mistrial when the jury, which included five black jurors, could not reach a verdict.12 The fifth trial also ended in a mistrial with a jury of three black jurors.13
At the sixth trial in June 2010, twenty-six prospective jurors were presented, six of whom were black.14 The State used five of its six peremptory strikes against black prospective jurors, resulting in a jury of eleven white jurors and one black juror that convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death.15
Over the course of the first four trials, the State employed peremptory strikes against thirty-six black prospective jurors.16 Across all six trials combined, the State struck forty-one of the forty-two black prospective jurors it could have struck.17 In the sixth trial, the State asked the five struck black prospective jurors a total of 145 questions, while asking the eleven seated white jurors a total of twelve questions.18
The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the sixth conviction in a divided 5-to-4 decision.19 The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment and remanded for further consideration in light of Foster v. Chatman, and after the Mississippi Supreme Court again affirmed by a 5-to-4 vote, granted certiorari once more.
Whether the State’s peremptory strikes against black prospective jurors at Flowers’ sixth trial were motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent?20
Under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a prosecutor may not exercise peremptory strikes on the basis of race.21 After a prima facie showing of discrimination, the State must offer race-neutral reasons, and the trial court must decide whether those reasons are genuine or pretextual.22 The key question is whether the State was motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent, evaluated through all relevant circumstances including historical patterns across trials, the pattern of strikes in the current trial, disparate questioning of prospective jurors, and comparisons of struck and accepted jurors.23
Yes. The established facts demonstrate that the prosecutor’s peremptory strikes at the sixth trial were motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent.24 In 1996 four people were murdered at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.25 Curtis Flowers, who is black, was charged with the murders and tried six times by the same white prosecutor.26
In the first trial the State struck all five black prospective jurors and an all-white jury convicted Flowers.27 The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed for prosecutorial misconduct.28 In the second trial the State again attempted to strike all five black prospective jurors, but the trial court seated one after finding a proffered reason pretextual.29 The jury with one black juror convicted Flowers and the Mississippi Supreme Court again reversed for prosecutorial misconduct.30
In the third trial the State used all fifteen peremptory strikes against black prospective jurors.31 The jury with one black juror convicted Flowers and the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed, finding as strong a prima facie case of racial discrimination as it had ever seen.32 The fourth and fifth trials ended in mistrials.33
At the sixth trial the State struck five of the six black prospective jurors.34 Across the first four trials the State struck thirty-six black prospective jurors and across all six trials it struck forty-one of the forty-two black prospective jurors it could have struck.35 In the sixth trial the State asked the five struck black prospective jurors a total of 145 questions while asking the eleven seated white jurors only twelve questions.36
The State struck Carolyn Wright, a black prospective juror, in part because she knew defense witnesses and had worked at Wal-Mart, yet similarly situated white prospective jurors who knew many people involved in the case were accepted without comparable individual questioning.37 These facts together establish clear error by the trial court in rejecting the Batson challenge.38
The judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings.39
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Alito concurred in the judgment.40 He emphasized that this is a highly unusual case likely one of a kind, involving the same prosecutor across six trials in a small town where many potential jurors had connections to the defendant or victims, multiple prior reversals for discrimination and misconduct, and inflammatory facts.41 Alito stated that in an ordinary case with facially legitimate reasons for the strikes he would affirm the Mississippi Supreme Court, but the unique combination of circumstances here required reversal of the conviction.42