1/ Curtis Flowers’ defense team just filed their brief to SCOTUS. The State has 30 days to respond. No date set yet for oral arguments. @InTheDarkAPM supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/1…
2/ I’ll tweet out some key points in the brief. But 1st, a reminder-SCOTUS is looking at a claim that D.A. Doug Evans intentionally struck black people from the jury bc of their race in Flowers’ 6th trial. If SCOTUS finds that Evans did that, it will overturn Flowers’ conviction.
3/ The Mississippi Supreme Court has already looked at whether Evans engaged in racial discrimination in jury selection (known as a Batson violation) in Flowers’ 6th trial, and the MS Supreme Court found he did not.
4/ But Flowers’ lawyers argue the MS Supreme Court didn’t consider all relevant factors when it decided that Evans didn’t discriminate against black potential jurors in Trial 6. That’s the issue now before SCOTUS - Did the MS Supreme Ct err in how it applied Batson in this case?
5/ In the brief filed today, Flowers’ lawyers argue that the Mississippi Supreme Court should have but didn’t consider Evans’ record of racial discrimination in jury selection. They note that Flowers’ 3rd conviction was overturned bc the MS Supreme Court found Evans discriminated
6/ And they point out that the trial judge in Flowers’ second trial found a Batson violation during jury selection and refused to let Evans strike that juror (The juror was black man Evans had accused of sleeping during voir dire. The judge said he didn’t see the man sleeping.)
7/ Flowers’ lawyers: “Evans had already shown himself, at least twice in this same case, to be willing both to violate the Constitution and to try to conceal his racial motivation.”
8/ Flowers’ attorneys also note Evans’ pattern of striking black people from the jury pool across all of the Flowers’ trials - resulting in juries that were either all white or mostly white. They argue that the MS Supreme Court should have considered this but didn’t.
9/ Flowers’ lawyers: “Evans had previously won convictions of Flowers only by breaking the rules, and in this sixth trial he broke the rules again.”
10/ Flowers’ lawyers argue that Evans actions during jury selection in trial six “show greater cunning” but that the motive was the same as earlier trials — to remove black people from the jury pool because of their race 
11/ Flowers’ lawyers get into the details of jury selection in trial 6 - and Evans’ striking of 5 black potential jurors. They note that Evans asked those five people a total of 145 questions - and that Evans asked the 11 whites who ended up on the jury a total of 12 questions.
12/ Flowers’ lawyers argue that Evans misrepresented the facts about several black potential jurors he struck from the jury in Flowers’ sixth trial
13/ Flowers’ lawyers: “The prohibition against racial discrimination in jury selection ... shields individual defendants from discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement of the law; it protects potential jurors’ right to participate in the administration of justice ... “
14/ “... and it prevents the undermining of public confidence in the criminal justice system. All of those values were diminished by the Mississippi Supreme Court’s perfunctory treatment of the evidence of discrimination in this case.”
15/ Flowers’ lawyers argue that the MS Supreme Court’s reasoning (that Evans’ history of discrimination and if making false statements wasn’t probative) reflects “a crabbed view of Batson that conflicts with this Court’s precedents.”
16/ In closing, Flowers’ lawyers ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court.
