Flowers v. State
Flowers v. State
Opinion of the Court
Now before the Court, en banc, is the Motion to Extend Stay of Post-Conviction Proceedings filed by Petitioner and the Response filed by Respondent. Petitioner asks that consideration of his Petition for Post-Conviction Relief be stayed until the Court issues its decision on Petitioner's direct appeal in light of Flowers v. Mississippi , 578 U.S. ----,
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the Motion to Extend Stay of Post-Conviction Proceedings filed by Petitioner is granted. Proceedings in Petitioner's post-conviction case are stayed until this Court issues its decision on Petitioner's direct appeal.
SO ORDERED
/s/ Josiah Dennis Coleman
TO GRANT: WALLER, C.J., DICKINSON AND RANDOLPH, P.J., LAMAR, KITCHENS, KING, COLEMAN, MAXWELL AND BEAM, JJ.
RANDOLPH, P.J., CONCURS WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN STATEMENT.
*847¶ 1. I offer no objection to this Court's order granting Curtis Giovanni Flowers's Motion to Extend Stay of Post-Conviction Proceedings. With all due respect, I write separately because I am uncertain that all of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court fully appreciate how Mississippi and this state's Supreme Court administer and adjudicate post-conviction relief (PCR) proceedings. The Mississippi Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act (
¶ 2. In Flowers v. Mississippi , 578 U.S. ----,
¶ 3. In its one-paragraph opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court failed to identify a "compelling reason" why certiorari was granted. The U.S. Supreme Court failed to identify any error by this Court in vacating this Court's decision in Flowers v. State ,
¶ 4. The Supreme Court's directive in Flowers v. Mississippi injects an unnecessary delay in Flowers's attempt to advance his PCR claims and leaves the proverbial Sword of Damocles dangling over his head. The U.S. Supreme Court should not require this Court to cast aside Mississippi's statutory scheme or carve out an exception for Flowers. The U.S. Supreme Court's command to review in light of Foster reveals a lack of appreciation of how the Mississippi Legislature has established protections, enforced regularly by this Court, for persons under the sentence of death. Under our body of law, it is inappropriate to consider evidence outside the record on a direct appeal. This Court is limited to the record presented on direct appeal. The record evidence which was before this Court on Flowers's direct appeal did not include any prosecutorial notes, as were produced in Foster . Such notes allowed Foster to factually demonstrate purposeful discrimination.
¶ 5. In the absence of identifying any error that would call for a reversal and vacation of our judgment of his direct appeal, the most direct path for Flowers to be afforded relief is for his direct appeal to be completed, so that he may proceed with discovery for Foster evidence through his PCR. Should he establish such evidence demonstrating purposeful discrimination, he would be entitled to relief. However, he cannot get to that phase until this direct appeal is concluded.
¶ 6. Everyone on this Court understands his or duties, responsibilities, and obligations. In the absence of a justice on this Court desiring to change his or her vote, I would enter an order post haste that this Court stands by its judgment in Flowers v. State . I also would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider recalling its opinion, as *849Foster did not change any law, as recognized in the dissent to the opinion. See Flowers v. Mississippi , 136 S.Ct. at 2158 (Alito, J., dissenting).
Batson v. Kentucky ,
"This Court often 'GVRs' a case-that is, grants the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacates the decision below, and remands for reconsideration by the lower court-when we believe that the lower court should give further thought to its decision in light of an opinion of this Court that (1) came after the decision under review and (2) changed or clarified the governing legal principles in a way that could possibly alter the decision of the lower court."
Flowers v. Mississippi , 578 U.S. ----,
Rule 10 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States reads in pertinent part:
Review on a writ of certiorari is not a matter of right, but of judicial discretion. A petition for a writ of certiorari will be granted only for compelling reasons . The following, although neither controlling nor fully measuring the Court's discretion, indicate the character of the reasons the Court considers:
...
(b) a state court of last resort has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with the decision of another state court of last resort or of a United States court of appeals;
(c) a state court or a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court, or has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court.
A petition for a writ of certiorari is rarely granted when the asserted error consists of erroneous factual findings or the misapplication of a properly stated rule of law.
Sup. Ct. R. 10 (emphasis added).
"To satisfy Batson , '[t]he trial court must ... determine whether the objecting party has met their burden to prove there has been purposeful discrimination in the exercise of peremptory challenges.' " Booker v. State ,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Curtis Giovanni FLOWERS a/k/a Curtis Flowers a/k/a Curtis G. Flowers v. STATE of Mississippi
- Status
- Published