Mississippi Prosecutor Who Excluded Black Jurors Resigns After 3 Decades
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A white Mississippi district attorney has resigned after more than 30 years on the job, during which he prosecuted a Black man six times in the shooting deaths of four people and excluded Black people from juries in a practice that led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the man’s conviction and death sentence.
Doug Evans is stepping down Friday, six months before his term ends. He did not immediately return a phone call Thursday seeking comment.
He unsuccessfully ran for a judgeship in 2022 and was not seeking reelection as district attorney this year in a north-central Mississippi district that covers seven counties.
Evans has been in office since 1992, and his jury selection tactics were scrutinized for years. His exclusion of Black jurors caused the Supreme Court to overturn the final conviction of Curtis Flowers in June 2019, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh citing a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.”
Flowers stood trial six times in the 1996 shooting deaths of four people at a furniture store in Winona, with four convictions and two mistrials. He has always maintained his innocence. Flowers remained in prison for six months after the Supreme Court overturned his final conviction because he was still under indictment, and he was released in December 2019 after a judge set bond.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-us-mississippi-prosecutor-black-jurors_n_649dcf7de4b028e6472f9ada
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