PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Unconstitutional jury selection is nothing new in the American South (as evidenced recently on the pages of this Blog the Rodricus Crawford Case. (Louisiana); But going to the heart of the Flower's of the case is the haunting possibility that the man Mississippi is trying so hard to kill is innocent - as is indicated by American Public Media (APM) and it's phenomenal podcast 'In The Dark. Check out this APM story by Dave Mann, a senior editor for APM Reports: It's headed: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers."
Read the New York Times story at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/us/curtis-flowers-doug-evans.html
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Prosecutors
have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning
of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found
compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM
Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who
said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that
Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where
it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution
claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder
weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The
revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports
journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have
reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no
reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the
murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified
against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers," by Dave Mann, published by The Clarion Ledger on July 7, 2018.
BACKGROUND:
This
is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with
APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is
adapted from "In the Dark," a truly excellent investigative podcast by APM Reports."
GIST: One
day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east
side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked
out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It
was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong
immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a
crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to
death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot
the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the
murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators.
Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors
have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning
of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found
compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM
Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who
said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that
Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where
it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution
claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder
weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The
revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports
journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have
reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no
reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the
murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified
against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. "A gun found on an alternate escape route: The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong
says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police
Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator,
told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the
pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the
Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM
Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if
the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon. “They'll
never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that
Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it
happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case. In
2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to
produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with
the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied
that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The
gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun
was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against
Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy
Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers
fled. One
key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the
store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later
questioned the veracity of her claims. East of
Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within
minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store
to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage
tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which
could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men
with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was
found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off
during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed: As
the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation
found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the
days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The
investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention
of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before
questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators
about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010.
Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I
think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned
anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified.
It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It
took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters
found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned
for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were
tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about
Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts
say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense
information about alternative suspects. Told by
reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five
minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that
they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and
have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That
takes five minutes.” He said investigators were
very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9
or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the
murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was
shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi
witness didn’t return calls. County records
uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after
his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After
Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers.
Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious
suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to
Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say. In
a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark”
podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a
reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers
termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent more than half his life in prison."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
STORY: ," by reporter DPUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
ave Mann,
published by APM reports July 7, 2019. (You can download episodes of
“In thehttps://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/ Dark” on iTunes. You can also read more about the Flowers case
at
inthedarkpodcast.org.
APM Reports is the investigative and documentary reporting team at
American Public Media, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Dave Mann is a senior digital editor for APM Reports.)
BACKGROUND: "This
is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with
APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is
adapted from "In the Dark," an investigative podcast by APM Reports."
GIST: "One
day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east
side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked
out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It
was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong
immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a
crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to
death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot
the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the
murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators.
Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors
have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning
of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found
compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM
Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who
said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that
Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where
it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution
claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder
weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The
revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports
journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have
reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no
reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the
murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified
against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. A gun found on an alternate escape route: The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong
says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police
Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator,
told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the
pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the
Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM
Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if
the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon.
“They'll
never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that
Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it
happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific
questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case. In
2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to
produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with
the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied
that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The
gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun
was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against
Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy
Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers
fled. One
key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the
store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later
questioned the veracity of her claims. East of
Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within
minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store
to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage
tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which
could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men
with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was
found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off
during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed: As
the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation
found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the
days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The
investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention
of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before
questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators
about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010.
Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I
think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned
anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified.
It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It
took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters
found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned
for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were
tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about
Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts
say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense
information about alternative suspects. Told by
reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five
minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that
they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and
have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That
takes five minutes.” He said investigators were
very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9
or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the
murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was
shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi
witness didn’t return calls. County records
uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after
his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After
Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers.
Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious
suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to
Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say.
In
a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark”
podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a
reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers
termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his
appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent
more than half his life in prison."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/
PUBLISHER'S
NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles
Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous
employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable
effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his
protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric
pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on
recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles
Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of
interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold
Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
STORY: "What
happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis
Flowers," by reporter Dave Mann, published by APM Reports on
The
Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the murder conviction
of Curtis Flowers, a black man who has been tried six times for the same
crimes, two months after
the United States Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor, who is white, unconstitutionally kept black people off the jury.
Mr.
Flowers, 49, has been accused of murder in the 1996 killings of four
people in a furniture store in Winona, Miss. All six prosecutions have
either ended in mistrial or convictions that were reversed on appeal.
The
case sparked a national conversation about race in the criminal justice
system after a podcast investigated the decades-long effort by the
prosecutor, Doug Evans, to convict Mr. Flowers.
STORY: ," by reporter Dave Mann,
published by APM reports July 7, 2019. (You can download episodes of
“In the Dark” on iTunes. You can also read more about the Flowers case
at
inthedarkpodcast.org.
APM Reports is the investigative and documentary reporting team at
American Public Media, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Dave Mann is a senior digital editor for APM Reports.)
BACKGROUND: "This
is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with
APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is
adapted from "In the Dark," an investigative podcast by APM Reports."
GIST: "One
day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east
side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked
out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It
was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong
immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a
crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to
death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot
the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the
murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators.
Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors
have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning
of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found
compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM
Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who
said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that
Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where
it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution
claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder
weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The
revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports
journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have
reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no
reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the
murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified
against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. A gun found on an alternate escape route: The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong
says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police
Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator,
told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the
pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the
Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM
Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if
the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon.
“They'll
never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that
Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it
happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific
questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case. In
2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to
produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with
the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied
that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The
gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun
was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against
Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy
Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers
fled. One
key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the
store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later
questioned the veracity of her claims. East of
Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within
minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store
to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage
tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which
could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men
with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was
found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off
during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed: As
the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation
found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the
days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The
investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention
of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before
questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators
about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010.
Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I
think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned
anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified.
It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It
took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters
found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned
for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were
tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about
Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts
say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense
information about alternative suspects. Told by
reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five
minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that
they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and
have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That
takes five minutes.” He said investigators were
very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9
or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the
murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was
shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi
witness didn’t return calls. County records
uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after
his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After
Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers.
Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious
suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to
Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say.
In
a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark”
podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a
reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers
termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his
appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent
more than half his life in prison."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/
PUBLISHER'S
NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles
Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous
employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable
effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his
protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric
pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on
recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles
Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of
interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold
Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
STORY: "What
happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis
Flowers," by reporter Dave Mann, published by APM Reports on
The
Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the murder conviction
of Curtis Flowers, a black man who has been tried six times for the same
crimes, two months after
the United States Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor, who is white, unconstitutionally kept black people off the jury.
Mr.
Flowers, 49, has been accused of murder in the 1996 killings of four
people in a furniture store in Winona, Miss. All six prosecutions have
either ended in mistrial or convictions that were reversed on appeal.
The
case sparked a national conversation about race in the criminal justice
system after a podcast investigated the decades-long effort by the
prosecutor, Doug Evans, to convict Mr. Flowers.
