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1/ Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion reversing Curtis Flowers’ conviction for the 1996 quadruple murder in Winona, Miss. Here are some highlights from Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion. #CurtisFlowers @InTheDarkAPM
2/ Justice Kavanaugh cites D.A. Doug Evans’ long history of striking black people from the jury in Curtis Flowers’ earlier trials. Flowers has always been tried by an all-white or mostly white jury. 
3/ Justice Kavanaugh: “The State appeared to proceed as if Batson had never been decided.” (Batson is the most important Supreme Court case on racism in jury selection. It set a framework for deciding whether a prosecutor is engaging in racial discrimination in jury selection.)
4/ Justice Kavanaugh: “The State’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”
5/ Justice Kavanaugh: “The State’s actions in the first four trials necessarily inform our assessment of the State’s intent going into Flowers’ sixth trial. We cannot ignore that history. We cannot take that history out of the case.”
6/ Justice Kavanaugh: “It is true that the State accepted one black juror for Flowers’ sixth trial. But especially given the history of the case, that fact alone cannot insulate the State from a Batson challenge.”
7/ Justice Kavanaugh cites the “dramatically disparate questioning and investigation” of black and white prospective jurors. Says it “strongly suggests that the State was motivated in substantial part by a discriminatory intent.”
8/ Justice Kavanaugh focuses on a black prospective juror named Carolyn Wright who was struck by the State.
9/ Justice Kavanaugh says the State asked Carolyn Wright a lot of questions, but did not ask 3 white prospective jurors individual follow-up questions about their connections to witnesses, even though those people reported knowing a lot of people involved in the case.
10/ Justice Kavanaugh goes through each of D.A. Doug Evans’ stated reasons for striking Carolyn Wright from the jury — and knocks them down, one by one.
11/ Justice Kavanaugh says the State made an incorrect statement about Carolyn Wright and made “apparently incorrect statements” about other black prospective jurors.
12/ Kavanaugh: “The side-by-side comparison of Wright to white prospective jurors whom the State accepted for the jury cannot be considered in isolation in this case. In a different context, the Wright strike might be deemed permissible. But we must examine the whole picture.”
13/ Kavanaugh concludes: “... the trial court at Flowers’ sixth trial committed clear error in concluding that the State’s peremptory strike of black prospective juror Carolyn Wright was not motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent.” Conviction is reversed.
