how is doug evans still a practicing lawyer in mississippi

According to the Mississippi Bar Association, Evans has received no public sanction and is still a lawyer in good standing. Evans couldn’t be reached at his office for comment.

Full Answer

Who is Mississippi District Attorney General Doug Evans?

Sep 03, 2021 · September 3, 2021 – Today, the Mississippi Center for Justice and Hogan Lovells filed a federal court lawsuit against District Attorney Doug Evans and three investigators for misconduct that led to the wrongful prosecution of Curtis Flowers (click here to view the complaint). Flowers, who was falsely accused of killing four people in a furniture store in …

Is Doug Evans an honest attorney general?

According to the Mississippi Bar Association, Evans has received no public sanction and is still a lawyer in good standing. Evans couldn’t be reached at his office for comment. “It shows how flawed the system is,” said American University Washington College of Law Professor Angela J. Davis, who researches the power of prosecutors (full disclosure: Davis has donated to In the …

Is EV Evans still the chief prosecutor in Mississippi?

June 12, 2018 | by Parker Yesko. When Doug Evans first ran to be the chief prosecutor of Mississippi's Fifth Circuit Court District in 1991, he was 38 years old. He'd grown up in the district and graduated high school there. He had studied criminal justice at a college just an hour away.

Who is Doug Evans?

Jan 06, 2020 · Doug Evans, the Mississippi district attorney who has tried Curtis Flowers six times for the same crime, has asked to be removed from the case. In a court filing late Monday afternoon, Evans voluntarily recused himself from further prosecution of Flowers. He asked Circuit Judge Joey Loper to assign the case to the Mississippi attorney general's office.

Is Doug Evans still a prosecutor in Mississippi?

Is Doug Evans still in office?

What happens to Doug Evans?

Can Curtis Flowers sue the state of Mississippi?

Is Doug Evans in jail yet?

What is Curtis Flowers doing now?

Is Doug Evans a meteorologist?

Did Curtis Flowers receive a settlement?

Who is the district attorney of Mississippi?

Did Levon Brooks sue the state of Mississippi?

Who is Doug Evans?

Did Jason Davis defend Evans?

Assistant Attorney General Jason Davis, there to argue that the justices shouldn’t overturn Flowers’ most recent conviction, didn’t attempt to defend Evans’ conduct over the years. “The history in this case is troubling,” Davis conceded. He said the Attorney General’s Office lacked the legal authority to take over a case unless the prosecutor requested it. In other words, Evans would have to remove himself.

Did Evans surrender Flowers?

It was only after Flowers’ case received national media attention and was reviewed by the Supreme Court that Evans finally agreed to surrender the case. Green said more scrutiny has and will continue to lead to more accountability. “As long as the public cares, things are going to move in a positive direction,” Green said. “If you take the long view, things get better.”

Did Evans face consequences in the Flowers case?

“They basically said there was nothing wrong with the case and reversed it anyway.”. It seems unlikely that Evans will face consequences for his actions in the Flowers case.

Did Evans floute the Constitution?

In the Flowers case, courts have repeatedly found that Evans flouted the Constitution. Four of Flowers’ convictions were reversed on appeal, all because of Evans’ misconduct. Yet he was allowed to retry Flowers again and again.

Can a prosecutor retry a case?

Prosecutors have enormous discretion to pursue criminal cases as they see fit. Their actions in any individual proceeding can be reviewed on appeal, but their overall conduct is rarely subject to oversight. In the Flowers case, courts have repeatedly found that Evans flouted the Constitution. Four of Flowers’ convictions were reversed on appeal, all because of Evans’ misconduct. Yet he was allowed to retry Flowers again and again.

Can Evans be fired for Flowers?

Because district attorneys in Mississippi and all but five states are elected, Evans can’t be fired and he has no boss to reprimand him if he breaks the rules. And voters often have no power at the ballot box.

Did Evans recuse himself from the case?

Soon after, Evans agreed to recuse himself from the case, clearing the way for the Attorney General’s Office to take over and eventually drop the charges against Flowers for lack of evidence. There are also the findings published by In the Dark that implicate Evans in other forms of wrongdoing.

How old was Doug Evans when he ran for the Fifth Circuit?

When Doug Evans first ran to be the chief prosecutor of Mississippi's Fifth Circuit Court District in 1991, he was 38 years old. He'd grown up in the district and graduated high school there. He had studied criminal justice at a college just an hour away. In campaign ads, he showcased his decade in law enforcement, and his wife and two teenage kids.

Can a district attorney be fired for Curtis Flowers?

This might help explain why Doug Evans has fought so hard to win a conviction in the Curtis Flowers case. An elected district attorney cannot be fired. He is accountable only to the voters of his district, though they have little recourse if his name is the only one on the ballot.

Who is the prosecutor for Curtis Flowers?

Mississippi prosecutor Doug Evans takes himself off the Curtis Flowers case. The district attorney who's tried Flowers six times for the same crime will no longer handle the prosecution. Doug Evans, the Mississippi district attorney who has tried Curtis Flowers six times for the same crime, has asked to be removed from the case.

What did Loper point to in granting bail?

In granting bail on Dec. 16, Loper pointed to the state's weak evidence against Flowers, and criticized Evans for not responding to motions in the case and not appearing in court.

Why did the NAACP sue the prosecutor?

And shortly after his re-election, four of Evans' black constituents and a local branch of the NAACP sued the prosecutor in federal court for what they claim is his pattern of excluding African Americans from juries.

When was the Tardy Furniture murder conviction overturned?

Flowers, who has maintained his innocence, was first convicted of the murders at Tardy Furniture in 1997. His death sentence from that trial and three later convictions prosecuted by Evans were overturned on appeal. Two other trials ended in hung juries. The latest reversal came in June when the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the conviction from Flowers' sixth trial, in 2010, finding that Evans had discriminated on the basis of race during jury selection.

Did the recusal end the murders of the four people?

The recusal doesn't end the prosecution of Flowers for the 1996 murders of four people at a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store. But if Loper grants Evans' request, as he likely will, it does mean that Flowers' fate is no longer in the hands of a staunch courtroom adversary who's fought for more than two decades to have Flowers executed.

Did Evans try Flowers?

Evans had yet to publicly announce whether he would try Flowers a seventh time. In an extraordinary development last month, Flowers, who'd been incarcerated for nearly 23 years, was freed on bail. VIDEO Watch bail arguments and Loper's ruling.

Why did the Evans lawsuit ask a federal court to prevent Evans’ office from dismissing jurors?

The suit had asked a federal court to prevent Evans’ office from dismissing jurors because of their race.

Who sued Evans for jury selection?

In it, the plaintiffs asked U.S. District Judge Debra Brown to “hold [Evans] accountable for the policy, custom, and usage of racially discriminatory jury selection” and to grant “an injunction to end this odious practice.” The suit cited an analysis by In the Dark, which found that, over a 26-year period, Evans and his assistants struck Black prospective jurors at nearly 4.5 times the rate they struck white ones.

What does Craig say about Instagram?

Instagram. “If you don’t have an opportunity to raise those claims in the state court proceeding, and you don’t have an opportunity to raise them in federal court, you basically have a right without a remedy,” Craig said. “That’s unacceptable.”.

Why did Brown throw out the case?

Brown threw out the suit on procedural grounds. Her decision turned solely on a legal doctrine called abstention, which can require federal courts to refrain from interfering in state criminal cases under certain circumstances.

Do Evans district attorneys have immunity?

They have absolute immunity from lawsuits for money damages, they rarely face discipline from their local bar associations, they almost always run for office unopposed, and, when they do face challengers, incumbent district attorneys tend to win reelection anyway.

Did the Evans case affect jury selection?

All of Flowers’ convictions were reversed on appeal. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Evans had discriminated against Black prospective jurors at Flowers’ most recent trial.

What is the corrective measure for prosecutorial misconduct?

Kilgore added that the only real corrective measure for this type of prosecutorial misconduct is the possible reversal of a conviction obtained as a result of the misconduct.

How many pages are there in the petition for post conviction relief?

In a February 28, 2019 Petition for Post-Conviction Relief, attorneys for Flowers were in fact forced to use 81 pages of their 327-page petition to outline the prosecutorial misconduct engaged in by D.A. Evans: suppression of exculpatory evidence, knowing use of false testimony/evidence, and suppression of impeachment evidence designed to keep an innocent person under a criminal conviction and sentence of death.

How many times did Curtis Flowers get convicted?

Between 1997 and 2010, the racist district attorney prosecuted and convicted Curtis Flowers six times, securing the death sentence against Flowers four times in those prosecutions. The prosecutions were conducted before all-white or predominantly white jurors because the district attorney intentionally, methodically and discriminatorily engaged in pattern of excluding African Americans from jury participation in the case. Each of the six convictions were overturned by either Mississippi or federal courts because Evans engaged in gross prosecutorial misconduct or because of his deliberate racist patterns of excluding African Americans from jury duty in the case.

Does the Mississippi Bar have ethical rules?

And, as Yesko discovered, the Mississippi Bar does not have any rules of ethical procedure to hold him accountable for what is nothing short of lawless and criminal conduct. In fact, the Mississippi Bar fosters—in some cases, encourages—corrupt, rogue prosecutors like Doug Evans. Yesko explained:

Will the District Attorney's Office prosecute Curtis Flowers?

Chances are the district attorney’s office will opt for a seventh prosecution of Curtis Flowers – and there remains the potential that the office will continue to engage in the same pattern of prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination it has exhibited in the Flowers case for more than two decades. Until new leadership is elected and cleans house, prosecutorial misconduct in the Montgomery County, Mississippi, District Attorney’s Office will reign supreme and the institutional racism that has formed the bedrock of the prosecutions for decades will continue to deprive black and brown defendants of a fair trial.

Which case has earned Evans the most national attention?

The case that has earned Evans the most national attention is that of the 1996 Winona furniture store murders.

What did Davis argue about the sixth trial?

However, Davis argued that none of the juror candidate eliminations in the sixth trial were tainted, meaning they were all excluded for non race related reasons.

What recourse does Flowers have against Evans for the district attorney’s violations of his constitutional rights?

Now that he is free, what recourse does Flowers have against Evans for the district attorney’s violations of his constitutional rights? None .

What happens when a prosecutor deprives a defendant of their constitutional rights?

But these consequences are very real. When a prosecutor deprives a criminal defendant of their constitutional rights, the prosecutor inflicts a harm on the defendant. Two immediate options exist for who can bear the cost of that harm: the prosecutor or the defendant. The prosecutor might bear the cost through civil liability, or the defendant might bear the cost by suffering the harm without compensation. In the context of the Curtis Flowers case, Evans might be required to compensate Flowers for the years he deprived him of his constitutional rights, or Flowers might be forced to bear the cost himself. Given a choice between making Evans or Flowers pay for Evans’ decades of misconduct, the Imbler court chose Flowers.

Why is the court's reasoning on the first point backward?

The court’s reasoning on the first point is exactly backward. It feared the public would lose trust in prosecutors who avoided violating the Constitution to preserve their own self-interest. This concern focuses too heavily on the perception of self-interest and too little on the product of that self-interest: fewer constitutional violations. To counter the perception problem, the court created a rule that permits prosecutors to violate the Constitution with impunity. But given a choice between a rule that prevents constitutional violations and one that permits them, wouldn’t the former do more to earn the public’s trust?

Is Doug Evans still a district attorney?

Possible professional recourse, it felt sure, incentivizes prosecutors to follow the Constitution’s dictates or face losing their jobs. This theory holds no water in practice. In 2019, Doug Evans was reelected as district attorney. He still serves today.

Can Flowers seek justice against Evans?

No matter how egregiously Evans abused his powers, Flowers cannot seek justice against him.

Can Curtis Flowers seek justice?

So no matter how egregiously Doug Evans abused his powers to deprive Curtis Flowers of his constitutional rights, Flowers cannot seek justice against him. Advertisement. Absolute immunity for prosecutors is a step beyond qualified immunity for police officers.