## Facts

- In 1996, four employees were murdered at a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi; Curtis Giovanni Flowers, a Black man, was charged.
- Flowers was tried six times for the same offenses, all prosecuted by the same district attorney.
- In the first two trials, the State used peremptory strikes against all qualified Black prospective jurors; convictions and death sentences were later reversed for prosecutorial misconduct.
- In the third trial, the State used all 15 peremptory strikes against Black prospective jurors; the conviction and death sentence were reversed after a finding of a Batson violation.
- The fourth and fifth trials ended in mistrials after hung juries.
- In the sixth trial, the State used six peremptory strikes, five against Black prospective jurors, and one Black juror was seated; Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death.
- Flowers challenged the sixth-trial jury selection, focusing on the State’s peremptory strike of Carolyn Wright, a Black prospective juror.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court clearly erred under Batson v. Kentucky in finding that the State’s peremptory strike of Carolyn Wright was not substantially motivated by discriminatory intent.
2. Whether the Mississippi Supreme Court misapplied Batson in affirming the conviction and death sentence after the sixth trial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Mississippi Supreme Court and remanded.
- The Court held the trial court committed clear error in concluding that the peremptory strike of Carolyn Wright was not substantially motivated by race.
- The Court relied on the totality of relevant circumstances, including the prosecutor’s history across Flowers’s trials, strike patterns in the sixth trial, disparate questioning, and comparative juror analysis.
- Justice Alito concurred in the judgment, agreeing that the record supported a Batson violation as to Wright.
- Justice Thomas dissented, joined in part by Justice Gorsuch, arguing the majority failed to give proper deference and improperly relied on prior trials.

## Legal Principles

- Batson requires a three-step inquiry: (1) prima facie showing of race-based striking, (2) prosecutor’s race-neutral reasons, and (3) determination whether purposeful discrimination occurred, including whether stated reasons are pretextual.
- A single peremptory strike motivated by discriminatory intent violates the Equal Protection Clause.
- Courts assessing discriminatory intent must consider all relevant circumstances, which may include a prosecutor’s history of peremptory strikes in earlier trials involving the same defendant and prosecutor.
- Disparate questioning of Black and white prospective jurors can be evidence that asserted race-neutral reasons are pretextual.
- Comparative juror analysis is probative: when a stated reason to strike a Black juror applies equally to a similarly situated non-Black juror who was accepted, that disparity is strong evidence of pretext.
- Appellate review of Batson determinations is for clear error, but deference does not permit ignoring substantial evidence of discrimination.

## Conclusion

The Court concluded that the State’s peremptory strike of Carolyn Wright was substantially motivated by race when viewed in context, and that the Mississippi courts clearly erred in accepting the prosecutor’s explanations; the conviction and sentence were therefore reversed and the case remanded.


Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U.S. 284 (2019)