They will pay $ 500,000 to a man who was jailed for 23 years by mistake

A man unjustly imprisoned for nearly 23 years will receive compensation of $ 500,000. The event occurred in the state of Mississippi.

This is Curtis Flowers, who was arrested in January 1997 for the murder of four people at a place where they sold furniture in the city of Winona. From the day of his arrest, he remained in prison until his release, which did not take place until 2019. For much of that time, Flowers had to endure her incarceration in a death row cell at Parchman Prison.

Justice was served last Tuesday when Mississippi Judge George Mitchell ordered the state to pay that sum to the prisoner, plus an additional fifty thousand dollars for attorney fees.

In statements on the website US public media reports, Flowers said, “I feel great. I think the payoff should have been more, but I feel alright“. His attorney, Rob McDuff of the Mississippi Justice Center, said, “As we have learned more about this case in recent years, it is now widely accepted that Curtis Flowers did not commit this crime. You were clearly qualified for compensation under this law. Unsurprisingly, the attorney general’s office recognized it. But five hundred thousand dollars is not enough money. Unfortunately, this is all that is allowed.“.

Flowers have been tried six times for the murders Bertha Tardy, 59 years old; Robert Golden, 42; Carmen Rigby, 45; and Derrick Stewart, 16, at the Tardy furniture store, where he had been employed until about two weeks earlier.

Two of those trials ended in null juries, while four resulted in convictions and death sentences, all of which were overturned. But even when his sentences were truncated, Flowers remained locked up awaiting new trials.

His appeals eventually ended in the United States Supreme Court, who voted that District Attorney Doug Evans, who started all the trials, deliberately excluded black jurors and, therefore, denied Flowers a fair trial.

At the time, Evans apologized for the Flowers case ahead of possible future trials with a court document that read, “I have personally sued the accused in the six previous trials. While I remain confident in both the investigation and the jury’s verdicts in this case, I have concluded that my continued participation will prevent families from obtaining justice and that the accused will be held accountable for their actions“.

Speaking about what it feels like to finally be free, Flowers added:Now I live every day to the fullest and hope all is well I’m happy. I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m doing everything I can to make sure it’s good. “.

THE NATION