As the article posted below suggests, the “Flowers bill” designed to expand the jury pool from a single county to a five-county district has passed by a comfortable margin.
There are several pertinent facts this article mention. First, among white senators the bill passed 33-4; among black senators it was rejected 11-1. This suggests that the racial divide so evident in Winona and Montgomery County is reflected in the Mississippi Senate.
Secondly, the article doesn’t mention that the bill’s sponsor, Senator Lydia Chassaniol (R-Winona) is a proud member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and addressed the groups’ state convention in Jackson last June. The picture to the left is taken from a brief report on the Jackson event on a white supremicist site called Stormfront.org. Under the picture you will find a charming quotation from the late-great Charles Lingbergh that nicely sums up the CCC attitude toward diversity: “We can have peace and security only as long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against dilution by foreign races. It is time to turn from our quarrels and to build our White ramparts again. This alliance with foreign races means nothing but death to us. It is our turn to guard our heritage . . . before we become engulfed in a limitless foreign sea.”
In the comments box below the Linburgh screed there is an endearing comment from a person who attended the CCC conference. “During the supper break, I rode over to a KFC just up the street. While there I was approached by one, then another scuzzy looking hood rats asking: “Hey man, ya got any spare change?” Prompting me both times to snarl out a definate NO. Upon reflection, I think that I should have at least tried to have a little by by having the bros earn their chump change by doing something such as crawl around & squeel like a pig.”
These people aren’t subtle, folks.
Lydia Chassaniol would have you believe that the Council of Conservative Citizens is just a group of well-intentioned school-boosters. The Mississippi media must buy this explanation because Miss Lydia’s link to the CCC has sparked little negative publicity.
Or could it just be that, in a state with a traumatic racial history, references to gross racism in high places is considered indelicate?
Chassaniol’s bill, if it becomes law, could create a slight uptick in the number of white jurors serving on Curtis Flower’s next jury, but that is a secondary issue. In the fourth of five trials in this amazing saga, five black jurors voted to acquit while all seven white jurors voted to convict. This was the only Flowers trial in which African-American representation on the jury rose to the one-third level that many experts cite as the point at which minority jurors begin to take their cues from one another instead of the majority group.
But the real issue in Winona is familiarity with the social facts apart from which this case cannot be understood. Black residents in Winona associate the Flowers family (Curtis included) with gospel singing and church life. In addition, black jurors are in a much better position to evaluate the credibility of the largely black witnesses the state is using in this case. On the black side of Winona, these folks aren’t generally taken seriously. White jurors, on the other hand, easily buy the state’s portrayal of Flowers and don’t know enough about the witnesses to judge their credibility. We are talking about witnesses who had no information until police officers showed up offering a $30,000 reward for anyone who remembered seeing Curtis Flowers on the day of the Tardy murders.
If folks from outside Montgomery County dominate the next jury pool it will be much easier for the prosecution to sell its theory of the crime. American defendants, in theory at least, have a right to be tried by a jury of their peers. The Chassaniol bill denies that right to Curtis Flowers.
February 4, 2010
Slayings trigger jury pool expansion bill
The Associated Press
Mississippi lawmakers are considering a bill that could have an impact on the long-running capital murder case of a Montgomery County man accused of killing four people at a furniture store nearly 15 years ago.
Curtis Flowers is set to be tried a sixth time later this year for the 1996 murders at Tardy Furniture store in Winona.
The case has nearly depleted Montgomery County’s jury pool, and is one of the reason legislators have been asked to approve a proposal to expand the area from which jurors are selected, said Circuit Court Lanelle Martin.
The Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow counties to pull prospective jurors from an entire multicounty circuit district. Currently, jurors are sought from the county in which the crime occurred.
Flowers is charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of Winona furniture store owner Bertha Tardy, 59; store employees Derrick “BoBo” Stewart, 16, and Carmen Rigby, 45; and delivery man Robert Golden, 42.
Flowers has had three trials in Winona, one in Tupelo and one in Biloxi. Two resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty in the trial scheduled for June at the Montgomery County Courthouse.
Martin said the county has fewer than 8,000 registered voters. The jury pool shrinks with the exclusion of those who choose not to serve and anyone who’s under the age of 21.
“You’re depleting the pool even more with relatives of the victims and relatives of the defendants,” she said. “That is one of the things that brought that bill on.”
Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said Montgomery County has spent $300,000 on the case so far. He said the costs are higher when the case is heard outside the county.
Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, and Sen. Johnnie Walls, D-Greenville, opposed the measure.
Walls said there’s already a mechanism in place to ensure defendants are treated fairly because judges can order that the cases be heard outside of the county in other areas of the state.
“The biggest problem I see is that we’ve been asked to do it because of one case because a person could not be convicted in the way the prosecution wanted the case to go,” Walls said. “They seem to be trying to get a special consideration for this case.”
Walls said the proposal would have statewide implications even though it’s been filed for only one situation. A similar bill filed last year passed the Senate, but was killed in the House.
Jordan said he’s concerned about limiting the potential of placing blacks on the jury in Flowers’ case. Flowers is black. Three of his victims were white. One was black.
Jordan said if the entire district is considered, jurors from Carroll and Grenada counties could be pooled. He said those areas have a small black population.
Census figures show Montgomery County has a 46 percent black population. The other counties in the circuit court district and their black population percentages are: Carroll County with 35 percent; Grenada County with about 42 percent; Webster County with about 21 percent; Attala County with 41 percent; Choctaw County with 31 percent and Winston County with 45 percent.
Friends of Justice 
Will it have to pass the house before it becomes law?
“Jordan said if the entire district is considered, jurors from Carroll and Grenada counties could be pooled. He said those areas have a small black population.”
According to the statistics that follow the quoted sentence Carroll County has 35% and Grenada county 42% black populations. The counties with the lowest proportions of blacks are Webster 21% and Choctaw with 31%.
Yes, Charles, the House bill would have to pass and the two bills reconciled before the legislation becomes law. This would happen in July at the earliest so unless there is a seventh trial (perish the thought) this legislation, if it is signed into law, won’t affect the June trial. Of course, trials are often continued, so who knows. African-American influence is stronger in the House, especially at the committee level, so I suspect the Flowers bill will die in committee just as it did last year.
Alan