Opinion ID: 2751111
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Flowers’s Motive

Text: ¶213. The second misstatement Flowers cites relates to his alleged motive to commit the murders. Similar to Sam Jones’s testimony and the timeline described above, misstatements related to Flowers’s motive were another basis for this Court’s reversal in Flowers II, 842 So. 2d at 556. In Flowers II, 842 So. 2d at 555-56, this Court found that the prosecution’s statement that Flowers “was mad” as a result of losing his employment with Tardy’s was a misstatement of the facts: [T]he prosecutor argued to the jury that [Robert] Campbell had testified that Flowers was mad because Mrs. Tardy had terminated his employment and was holding money out of his paycheck to cover the damaged batteries. Defense counsel objected on the basis that the prosecutor was mischaracterizing Campbell’s testimony, and when the prosecutor responded that he was quoting verbatim from his notes, the trial court overruled the defense objection. . . . After a thorough examination of Campbell’s testimony, it is clear Campbell never testified Flowers was upset at Mrs. Tardy. The State never questioned Campbell about Flowers’s feelings toward Tardy or about any money. On 122 redirect, Campbell was asked if Flowers ever mentioned anything was wrong with Mrs. Tardy, and Campbell stated Flowers never mentioned anything to him. Id. ¶214. In today’s appeal, Flowers claims that the following statement by the prosecutor was not based on facts in evidence: The investigators learned pretty quickly when they asked who in the world could have had some reason, some motive, some anything to attack four people like this. Have you had anybody that’s had beef with the store? Just one. Well, that doesn’t mean he did this though, does it? No. But you check that out. You look at him. And in the course of deciding what, if anything, Curtis Flowers had to do with this crime. Flowers claims that no evidence was presented at trial supporting the contention that he was angry as a result of his termination. In response, the State argues that the following supports the contention that Flowers “had beef” with Tardy’s: 1. Flowers losing his job days prior to the murders. 2. Bertha Tardy deducting the cost of damaged inventory from Flowers’s paycheck. 3. Police Chief John Johnson’s testimony that the Tardy family considered Flowers a threat: Q. Okay. How did Curtis Flowers become a suspect by then, by 6:30? A. I knew that the Tardy family had considered Curtis a threat and that they were concerned about their safety dealing with him. 4. Investigator Jack Matthew’s testimony about employees who had been fired from Tardy’s: Q. You asked who else had worked there the last couple of years and those kind of things? 123 A. Well, we asked if there was anybody that they’d had any problem with or anybody that had been fired from there, and that was the – Curtis was the only one. 5. Doyle Simpson’s testimony that Flowers had “problems” with Tardy’s: Q. Okay. Did you know anything about Curtis having any problems with Tardy Furniture. A. I had heard about it. ¶215. This evidence cited by the State supports the contention that Tardy’s employees were concerned about Flowers. But the feelings and perceptions of Tardy’s employees must be distinguished from Flowers’s perception. The statements cited by the State do not establish that Flowers had ill will toward Tardy’s employees. Further, Doyle Simpson’s testimony is too vague to support a statement that Flowers “had beef” with the store. “Problems” could easily refer to the firing itself or the damaged inventory. The State’s contention that Flowers “had beef” with Tardy’s is unsupported by the facts. As this Court recognized in Flowers II, this factually unsupported statement resulted in Flowers having an unfair trial.