Man regains freedom after he was wrongfully jailed for 23 years, to be paid N205.7m

- Curtis Flowers spent 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit

- Circuit Judge, George Mitchell, ordered the state of Mississippi to pay Flowers $500,000 (N205,780,000) in compensation

- The US Supreme Court ruled that Curtis was denied a fair trial when District Attorney Doug Evans refused to allow black jurors to participate

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Curtis Flowers was wrongfully arrested for murder, and he had always maintained his innocence.

In addition, the state of Mississippi has been ordered to pay $500,000 (N205,780,000) in damages to Curtis for wrongfully arresting him.

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He was released in December 2019 after serving 23 years in prison after being arrested in January 1997.

Circuit Judge George Mitchell ordered the state to pay Curtis $50,000 a year for 10 years as well as an additional $50,000 (N20,578,000) to cover legal expenses.

District Attorney Doug Evans has tried Curtis six times for the murder of four people in a furniture store in a town called Winona near Jackson.

Two of the trials ended in hung juries and four resulted in convictions as well as the death sentence which was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct.

His defence argues that there was insufficient physical evidence and the witness statements were too weak to convict.

The US Supreme court voted 7-2 that Flowers was denied a fair trial after Evans refused to allow black jurors to take part in the trial.

Critics have said that the compensation paid to flowers is too low, in Nevada, another man who was released after being wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for 18 years was paid $1.3 million (N535,028,000).

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the story of John Bunn is one that always wrenches the heart. He spent a whopping 27 years trying to prove his innocence in a murder crime charge.

When he was 14 years old, John was wrongfully charged for the murder of a corrections officer. He spent 17 years in prison and 10 years on parole.

In one of his court appearances, the man cried, saying:

"I’m an innocent man, your honour, I have always been an innocent man.”

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Joseph Omotayo writes for the human interest desk at Legit.ng. He graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University with a degree in Literature in English. He loves basketball and books. He tweets @omotayome.

Source: Legit.ng