Suit seeks to block prosecutor from excluding black jurors

Four black voters and a branch of the NAACP sued a Mississippi prosecutor on Monday, asking a federal judge to order him to stop excluding African Americans from juries.

The lawsuit against District Attorney Doug Evans is an outgrowth of a case where the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a murder conviction of an African American man, citing racial bias in jury selection.

Evans has tried Curtis Flowers six times for murder in a 1996 slaying, charging that he gunned down four people execution-style in a Winona furniture store.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Greenville, asks U.S. District Judge Debra Brown to permanently order Evans and his assistants to stop using peremptory challenges to remove African American jurors because of their race. The district is a rural expanse of northern Mississippi that includes Attala, Carroll, Choctaw, Grenada, Montgomery, Webster and Winston counties.

“Other than voting, serving on a jury is the most substantial opportunity that most citizens have to participate in the democratic process,” the complaint says. The plaintiffs are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the MacArthur Justice Center.

Evans didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment late Monday. He has previously disputed allegations that he sought to exclude black jurors because of their race.

The complaint cites an analysis of jury strikes by Evans from 1992 to 2017 by American Public Media’s “In the Dark” podcast. It found Evans office used peremptory strikes, which lawyers typically don’t have to explain, to remove 50% of eligible black jurors, but only 11% of eligible white jurors.

“The statistical disparity in the cases from 1992 through 2017 is inexplicable on non-racial grounds, and court records from jury selection in the fifth circuit court district since 2017 suggest that the practice continues now,” the lawsuit states.