Death of Curtis Flowers

curtis flower, A black man who was tried six times by the same white prosecutor in Mississippi for a crime he did not commit died earlier this week. He is fifty-six years old.

I started covering his case in 2017, which became the second season of the podcast in darkness. At the time, Flowers was on death row at the notorious Parchman Prison, an experience he later described as “like a nightmare.” His ordeal became one of the most egregious examples of prosecutorial misconduct in the United States.

In 1997, Flowers, 26, was arrested for the murders of four people at a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. In a legal journey that spanned more than two decades, he was convicted and sentenced to death four times by all-white or majority-white juries. Two other trials ended in mistrials with hung juries.

This case is like a legal “Groundhog Day.” Each time Flowers appealed, citing prosecutorial misconduct, he won. But the prosecutor, Mississippi 5th Circuit District Attorney Doug Evans, will only look at the case again.

Finally, in 2019, after a sixth trial, the Supreme Court accepted Flowers’ case and overturned his conviction. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said prosecutors had made “relentless and determined efforts to eliminate Black members from the jury.”

Flowers was released in December 2019. He spent nearly half of his life in prison.

Flowers spent most of the rest of his life in Winona, where he grew up. He became a full-time carer for his father, who had dementia. When I went to Flowers in 2025, I saw how gentle he was with his dad. He’ll encourage him to eat a bowl of applesauce, help him do a little shuffle dance to get him moving, and then put him to bed like a parent would a child. His father died last year, leaving Flowers alone at home, unsure of what to do next.

Flowers’ cause of death is unclear, but he had been battling complications from diabetes in recent weeks and had been hospitalized with a foot infection.

The last time I spoke to Flowers, we were sitting together on his porch while his father rested inside. Flowers pulled up a photo of a shiny red Can-Am Spyder motorcycle on his phone. He told me that he sometimes dreamed of buying it and leaving town. “I just want a fresh start, you know?” he said.

The latest episode of “In the Dark”, about the death of flowers, Available now at newyorker.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

The scene after the shooting in New York.Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Thursday afternoon, In New York City’s Marble Hill neighborhood, at least one federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man named Oscar Belgal after someone approached him while he was driving with his five-year-old son in a car. (Bergal was reportedly shot in the neck and was later transferred from the hospital and taken out of the state. His son was not physically injured.) Hours later, Mayor Zoran Mamdani called the shooting “outrageous” and demanded ice Cease operations in the city. He said he unsuccessfully lobbied President Donald Trump to free Bergal. He has had several highly publicized meetings with President Trump over the past few months.

Earlier today, a ice An official named Marcos Charles told reporters that Bergal had “weaponized” his car and accelerated into two government vehicles before the shooting. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said body-worn camera footage of the incident was available and relevant information would be released during the investigation.

This latest shooting fits an ongoing pattern in cities and towns across the country. Jonathan Blitzer, immigration affairs new yorker, Recently wrote about how ice Arrests are now at record highs and how agents are operating with impunity outside hospitals, airports and schools, many of them wearing masks despite calls from lawmakers to stop. “It has taken the Trump administration less than two years to make violent confrontations with federal immigration officials a normal feature of American life,” he wrote.