In The Dark - S2 Update: Q&A + A Fire in Winona

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

We answer your questions and report on a fire in Winona.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Hi, everyone. This is Madeline Barron, host of In the Dark, and I'm here with our senior producer, Samara Freemark. Hi, guys. We are back with another update episode of Season 2 of In the Dark. And in this episode, we're going to be doing something a little bit different than we usually do. We're going to be taking questions from all of you. You guys have sent us questions on Facebook and Twitter and email, and some of you have even left voicemails for us. And we're really excited to get to your questions. We're going to do that in just a few minutes. But first, I wanted to tell you about my latest trip to Winona. I was there last month with our

producer, Natalie, and we found out something while we were there that we thought you might want to know. Every time we're in Winona, we're invited to Sunday services at Winona Baptist Church. It's the oldest black church in town. It's also this community hub. Lots of people go there. Good morning to everyone. It's good to be here. We have a great work. God, you're welcome to be here today.

Just wanted to let you know that I have problems. So this last time we were there, after the service ended, a woman came up to Natalie and told her something. I didn't catch what it was, so when Natalie and I got back into the car, she filled me in. Okay. You said you had something to tell me? Yeah, I'm going to tell you this just in case this is true. Okay.

This woman, after church, she wouldn't tell me her name. She said that Nelson Forrest's house burned down a couple days after the funeral. What? No. Nelson Forrest is the pastor who gave the eulogy at the funeral of Curtis's mother, Lola, in July. The eulogy where Pastor Forrest told people in Winona to put aside their fear and stand up for Curtis Flowers. Sick and tired of scared folks.

It's easier than dying on the cross for you to be scared. He wasn't scared. What are you scared of? You stand for what's right. Nelson Forrest's house burned down after the funeral? I mean, we could just drive by his house right now. Yeah, let's just drive by. Okay.

Did she say anything else? She was like, I don't want to get mixed up in it because I don't want my house to burn down. And she wouldn't tell me her name. Nelson Forrest's house is on a quiet cul-de-sac with one-story houses close together. Check that out. What? Is that his house right there? Yep. That house has burned. The roof is partially gone and the door is boarded up and the screen on the door is the doors wide open oh my god yeah like there's like a tarp a blue tarp over part of the roof because the roof yeah there's like holes in the roof you can

see like the beams underneath there's a car in the driveway. Should we go up? I guess so. I think so, too. Let me look around. This is terrible. While I was knocking on the door, Nelson Forrest's wife, Maggie Forrest, and some of her family came around the side of the house. Hello. Woo! Excuse me. I'm sorry to scare you.

I'm so sorry. Mrs. Forrest had come back to the house to try to salvage a few last things. How y'all doing? Okay, what happened? House burned. When? July the 25th. July 25th.

That was just four days after her husband, Pastor Forrest, gave the eulogy at Lola Flowers' funeral. So we're just taking pictures of it, and they're supposed to tear it down on tomorrow. So we were just getting our last. We don't know. The fire marshal said they can't see where it started or what happened. Was anyone home when it happened? My husband. He just barely got out. Austin Forrest was home.

Wow. Mrs. Forrest told me that her husband was in bed sleeping when he heard a loud sound. At first, it sounded like maybe someone was trying to break in. And he said by the time he got up, the smoke detector went off. And he could see all the blades coming out of that window. And he got out and it was just rolling all around the house. So he came out in his pants. Somebody gave him some shoes and a shirt, one of the neighbors.

Mrs. Forrest was at her mother's house that night. He called me about 11 o'clock and said, good, a house on fire. And I said, no'clock and said, go to the house on fire. And I said, no, quit playing. He said, the house on fire? He said, I just barely got out. Car burned, truck burned, and came home and it was destroyed.

So it's total, and nobody knows what happened. And everybody was, some people asked, well, did somebody still have something fire? We don't know. We don't know what happened. And the fire watcher doesn't seem to know. The investigator, they don't seem to know either. So they don't have, like, any cause? Having what now?

They haven't determined? They didn't determine it. Can we see inside? Sure. Where'd the key go, baby but I just locked it up. Where the key? Y'all be careful, it's glass and I've been looking to turn on the light,

but there's no light to turn on. Oh wow. We're like walking through glass and soot. And this is the kitchen. We're like walking through glass and soot and hell. And this is the kitchen. And see, so that was burned too, right across. You can tell that. Wow. So the roof was burned.

That's what I'm saying. It was the roofs, the roof on both sides. Were you able to, what was saved? Well, we got some clothes out. All our computer stuff that was over there, of course, gone. Mrs. Forrest told me that fortunately, she and her husband had fire insurance. But still. I'm so sorry.

Well, thank y'all so much. And like I said, we've been in this house 36 years, 36 or 37. And we never imagined a fire. I mean, you know, we've been just fine and nothing happened. But it just felt like part of you gone. I mean, this was our memories. This was our stuff. I know we were paid for, bought and paid for.

And then for it to, you know, go, you got to start all over again. It's kind of, you know, bad. But everything else, I mean, we're glad that his life was spared. Because it could be a totally different story. Mm-hmm. I do wonder if because he's been so outspoken. That's what a lot of people say, but we don't know. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Do you think it's going to change anything about your husband's outspokenness? No. I mean, no. He's always been that way. He said no.

The initial report from the Winona Fire Department said the cause of the fire was unknown. We checked in with the fire chief of Winona. His name is Brad Mooneyham, and he told us that they did not investigate the fire, and also that they did not call in the state fire marshal to investigate. He wouldn't say why. He also told us that he did not think the fire was suspicious, but he wouldn't explain that either. The Forrests are staying with family for now, but Mrs. Forrest told us they're going to rebuild right here in this same spot. So now let's get to your questions.

This is Samara again. I'm the senior producer of In the Dark, and I'm sitting in the studio with Madeline. And Madeline, let's start with the big news in this case, which is that the Supreme Court just granted cert to Curtis Flowers. And we've gotten a lot of questions from listeners asking, you know, what exactly is going to happen now? Right. So this is the big news that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Curtis Flowers' appeal. And so the process, the way the process works is that in the next couple of months, both sides will be submitting written briefs to the Supreme Court, and then the court will schedule oral arguments. So that's when both sides will actually appear before the nine justices in D.C., and they'll each have 30 minutes to make their

case. And after that, after that oral argument, then the justices will deliberate. They'll decide privately whether they want to overturn his conviction, and they'll announce their decision. And the court's term ends at the end of June 2019. So this case, whether his conviction is overturned or not, will be decided by the end of that term. So sometime between now and late June. And what exactly is the Supreme Court looking at? Like, what is the question they're considering in Curtis's case? So they're not opening up the whole case. This isn't a question of is Curtis Flowers guilty of these crimes or not? the U.S. Supreme Court is looking at this really narrow part of the case, which has to do with jury selection. So like we've reported a lot on jury selection. And what the court is looking at is whether the district attorney, Doug Evans,

discriminated against black people in jury selection, whether he struck black people from the jury in Curtis's sixth trial because of their race. So that's the question that the court will be looking at. So what happens if Curtis wins in court? So if the Supreme Court does overturn his conviction, does he get out of prison? Not necessarily. So this is the question a lot of people have been asking us, like, if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns his conviction, he's free, right? And the answer is not necessarily. He actually will remain incarcerated while the next step happens. And in Curtis's. He actually will remain incarcerated while the next step happens. And in Curtis's case, what will happen is that the district attorney,

Doug Evans, will be able to decide what he wants to do next. He's got three main options. Number one, Doug Evans could dismiss the charges, just drop it. And if he did that, then Curtis would be released from prison. Number two, he could offer Curtis a plea deal. And that is something that you do sometimes see in these cases of alleged wrongful conviction, where you can technically plead guilty, but maintain your innocence. Essentially, what you're doing is you're saying, look, I'm acknowledging that if I went to trial, there's enough evidence to convict me, but I'm not saying that I did this crime. And that's actually, it's called an Alford plea. And so anyways, there's a variety of options of different types of plea deals that could be offered. And then, of course, if he doesn't dismiss it or offer a plea deal, the other option is another trial, which would be...

Trial seven. Exactly, a seventh trial. And so it's really up to him. And so it'll be interesting to see how he ends up, like what decision he ends up making. And of course, in any kind of other case, we might say, well, I don't know, would he try it again? But this is an extraordinary case. There's already been six trials. And so it's very possible there could be seven. So it really is up to him. I mean, even and this is, I guess, the question we keep getting asked, well, is it really still his decision to make? You know, even if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn the conviction and find that Doug Evans committed prosecutorial misconduct.

Which has been found by multiple courts before. Yeah, even if the highest court in the country finds that he discriminated against black people in jury selection, Curtis's trial, Doug Evans still gets to be the one to decide. And so that really is at the heart of why Curtis has been tried this many times to begin with. And that has not changed. So it will be the exact same situation if the court overturns it again. And so do you have any sense of kind of what goes into that decision by Doug Evans if the Supreme Court rules for Curtis? So if it comes to Doug Evans and he has to decide what he's going to do, what does that process look like? What does that process look like?

So typically what prosecutors will do in a situation like this is away the evidence. They'll look at all the evidence and they'll make a decision. Do I have enough evidence to convince a jury of this? Do I have enough evidence even for me to still believe this person is guilty? And so that's the sort of decisions that a prosecutor will make. Of course, Doug Evans hasn't talked to us about his strategy. And so we don't know exactly what it would be. But, you know, one of the things we would expect to see in a case like this is a presentation of the evidence by the defense, an attempt to say, look, you don't want to bring this to a seventh trial because you'll lose. Or are you sure you have the right person? Because let's look at this stuff.

And so some of the things that could come up there would be, for example, the fact that Odell Hallman, the state star witness, has reversed himself and said, I lied when I testified and said that Curtis confessed to me. Or it could have to do with alternate suspects or problems with the ballistics evidence. And so this is part of this like back and forth negotiation, like, look, you know, I think your case is pretty weak. Or no, I'm pretty certain it's quite solid. And this kind of give and take where both sides are trying to get to a place where they can feel good about it. And, you know, this is a very difficult moment in a lot of cases of alleged wrongful conviction, because you have, on the one hand, you have someone who says I'm innocent. And on the other hand, you have the prosecutor who has committed a lot of time, and certainly in the case of Doug Evans, more than 20 years, to prosecuting this person. And so, but often yet, even though there's that kind of polarization, we often do see a deal being reached. Of course, in this case, who knows? So everything we've just talked about has to do with if the court reverses Curtis's conviction. So of course, there's another possibility. So what happens if the court upholds the conviction? If they say the state of Mississippi did not get

this wrong, Doug Evans didn't get this wrong, the conviction stands. That is definitely, of course, not a good outcome for Curtis. So if that happened, the state would be validated. They'd say, look, we were right. We did not commit racial discrimination in jury selection. So it'd be a validation of the state. And it would mean that Curtis Flowers would, of course, remain on death row. And he does have other option, like one other main option available to him in his appeal. And it's something called a post-conviction. A post-conviction is the process where you can introduce new evidence that wasn't known at the time of trial. So what Curtis and his lawyers would be doing is saying, yes, Curtis was convicted in the sixth trial. But since that trial happened,

there's a whole lot of new information that's come to light that we think we should have known at the time of that trial, because we think it could have made a difference. And then that post-conviction process will make its way through the courts. And it is very long. You know, it can take years and years. And this is something that the In know, it can take years and years. And this is something that the In the Dark team is going to continue covering. Like, we will be covering Curtis's case as it goes through the Supreme Court and after. Right. We're actually in the process right now of putting together a plan for what that looks like. And we're really excited about what we're going to be able to do. So please stay tuned for that sometime in early 2019.

Right. And keep us in your feeds. And you can also sign up to get email updates. So if you go to our website, inthedarkpodcast.org, you can sign up to get email updates about the case. And those email updates, that will be, we should point out, the fastest way to find out breaking news about the case. So for example, if the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his conviction or overturned it, we will immediately send out an email alert to our subscribers telling them that. And we'll also very quickly update the podcast. So I would definitely, if you want the latest, you really should subscribe to that email list. Yeah. All right. We will get to some more of your questions

after the break. Hi, this is David Remnick. I'm proud to share the news that three films from the New Yorker documentary series have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards, and they are Incident, Seat 31, Zoe Zephyr, and Eternal Father. And they all immerse you in the finest cinematic journalism, exploring themes of justice, identity, and the bonds that shape us. These extraordinary films, which were created by established filmmakers as well as emerging artists, will inform, challenge, and move you. I encourage you to watch them along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films at newyorker.com slash video. Hi, I was wondering how common is it to find a case like Curtis's where the DA has tried the defendant several times for the same crime? I was wondering if you guys know of any other cases where this has happened?

Thank you. Hi, my name is Karen Dover, and I was just wondering how many times can you actually try the same person for the same crime, and is there any limitations? Thank you. Bye-bye. Yeah, that was definitely one of our, both of those questions were some of the first questions we had. So to answer the first question, we spent a lot of time trying to find anyone who'd maybe been tried six times like Curtis or more times. And we only found one case of someone who'd been tried more times. And I should say nobody tracks this. So it's very possible that there is somebody who's been tried more times who we don't know about. We looked at old newspaper coverage. We called lawyers in different states. But we only

found one case. So it's a case in Clarksdale, Mississippi. So in the Mississippi Delta, not in Doug Evans' district. And it involves an alleged gang member who was accused of killing two people. And he was actually tried nine times. That was very surprising when we found that. Yeah. And except that it wasn't a case and we couldn't find the full record. But what was different about it, it wasn't very similar to Curtis's case because a lot of the reasons for the multiple trials had to do with things like in the middle of the trial, they find out all of a sudden the juror, there's a juror who knows something or all of a sudden they find out in the middle of trial that something else has happened that requires in the middle of a trial

for a mistrial to be declared. And they had a bunch of hung juries, I think. So, so yeah, there was that case. But like, this is not a common thing. This is a very rare thing. And then what about this question from Karen? Is there a limit to how many times you can actually try someone like a legal limit? No. So if you are acquitted of a crime, so if a jury finds you not guilty, then you cannot be tried again. But Curtis, of course, was never found not guilty. So either in four of the trials, a jury found him guilty, and in two of them, they couldn't reach a verdict. So this is a case that has been going on for six trials over more than 20 years. And Curtis has had more than a dozen attorneys working on his case. And we've gotten a lot of questions about why we were able to find out some of this stuff that the

defense team had not uncovered, despite working on the case for so many years. So this would be things like Odell Holman telling us that he lied on the stand when he said that Curtis confessed to him, or the information we uncovered about Willie James Hemphill. Right, the possible alternate suspect. Right. So I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, there are a lot of things that the defense did find out. And this is, of course, a sprawling investigation. But clearly there are things that we found out that the defense did not know. And I don't know, you know, why that would be.

All I know is what we do in our jobs. And so I do know that when we were going out and talking to a lot of the witnesses who testified for the state at trial, that they told us, like, I've been approached by the defense before, but I didn't want to talk to them. One of the advantages sometimes that we have as reporters is that we're not on a side. So when we talk to a witness, it really doesn't matter to us whether they're pro-state or pro-defense. We just want to talk to them. And so I think that helped us in a way talk to some of the witnesses. I think that, you know, maybe our approach to records was different, but I'm not positive of that.

You know, our strategy for records tends to be, can we please just look at the records ourselves? And not just that, but where all do you keep your records? You know, yeah, we're in the office and there's some filing cabinets here. And can we look at those? But is there any other place where you keep records as well? For example, an abandoned plastics factory or a closed jail, maybe. Right. And can we go there? Yeah.

Because, you know, so that is actually where we found a lot of the most important records in this case. So, you know, for example, the booking card that showed that Willie James Hemphill, this alternate suspect, was held in jail shortly after the murders at Tardy Furniture in Winona, or a lot of Odell Hallman's criminal record. You know, and then there are some, you know, I guess one area that I would really point out where I do not know why the defense didn't follow through on and pursue this. And when I've talked to Curtis's lawyers at the time, they also say that they do not know why they did not pursue this, is the case of Willie James Hemphill. And so here's a guy who very early on when we were looking at the investigative file and I was going through it and putting it in order, there was this document that clearly stands out, which is, you know, just one page,

Willie James Hemphill waving, you know, saying, page, Willie James Hemphill, waving, you know, saying, I'm aware of my rights. I'm aware that anything I say could be used against me, and I'm going to waive that. And it's a couple days after the murders. And I wrote, you know, who is this? What is this? You know, and so we spent a year on that question. And that I do not know why the defense did not pursue. It'll be interesting to see if that's something that his team pursues going forward, though. We've had a lot of people ask about that old plastics factory where we found that booking card for Willie James Hemphill. And I should say, if you haven't seen it yet, Madeline actually made a video of the Coralite

factory, which is on our website. And I would strongly suggest that you check it out because it is amazing. But yeah, we have had a lot of people ask, like, what is going on with record storage down there? Yeah, so it's definitely true that there were some documents stored in some strange places in this project. But to me as a reporter, what stands out more is that the documents did exist. Because a lot of times your worst scenario as a reporter is that the documents are gone, that someone threw them out, that X number of years had passed. They have a records retention schedule that says every seven years we toss everything. And that is your worst fear. What was happening here was that documents were being saved, which is not exactly what you hear when you hear this. You hear, oh man, these documents are in some wild places.

But actually, for us, it was like, this is amazing. We go into this old jail and there are the documents. And the sheriff of that county was nice enough to let us into that jail and let us be there for as long as we needed to be. Same thing with so many of these other places. And the other thing to keep in mind is that, you know, obviously it would be ideal if these documents were all digitized and we could just go to a computer terminal in the courthouse and look them up. But the reality is that's not the case here. And that's not the case in most parts of the United States because it's so expensive. So you have to decide, you know,

what am I going to digitize and what am I not going to? And it's understandable that, you know, if you didn't have any money for digitizing things, that you wouldn't try to somehow digitize booking cards from the mid-1980s. I mean, so, you know, that I think is what we were encountering. And fortunately, you know, we were able to find things. The exception to that, I would say, was the plastics factory, the Correlate factory, because there you saw that documents were being destroyed, I mean, by mice and by water, by mold. And, you know, there is a person whose job it is to take care of the records, who's the elected clerk, who let us in, knew the records were being stored there, wasn't the one who put them there, that's the former clerk, but he's the elected clerk who let us in, knew the records were being stored there, wasn't the one who put them there. That's the former clerk. But he's the elected clerk. He knows that they're there. He let us in. He saw the state of the documents, and he has no plans to do anything about it.

Yeah. I have another question about the, another voicemail about some decisions from the defense. Here we go. Hi, my name is Kat and I'm calling from Fairfield, Connecticut about the Curtis Flowers case. I was wondering why it was never requested by the defense lawyers for a change of venue for the trial. It seems like once the jury was so familiar with the case that it would have compromised their objectivity. So I'm just curious if that ever came up and what were the results if it did. All right. Thanks. Great job. I enjoyed the season. I like there's like a kid in the background of that call. It's great. Definitely appreciate that. Yes. Yeah. So what happened in Curtis's case is actually the first two trials were held in a different venue in different parts of Mississippi. One of those trials was held down on the Gulf, and the other was held north of Winona, northeast in Tupelo.

So those were the first two trials. And it's definitely a question that the defense has to consider. So the risk, of course, of having the trial in Montgomery County, in Winona, is that everyone knows about this case. Not only that, I mean, this is a town of 4,000 people. So, so many people are connected in some way to the people who might testify in this case or to their family. So when you read the jury selection, for example, you see, you know, at a certain point, they just say, okay, raise your hand if you know this witness. And sometimes, you know, 30 hands would go up. And so it becomes much harder to find a jury who you believe, the courts believe, can set aside whatever information they

do know and be fair and impartial, which is what the court is considering. And so if you look at it that way, it might suggest, well, yeah, the defense would always want to move to a different venue. On the other hand, the risk that you run as a defense asking to move to a different venue is that you don't get to pick where the trial is going to move. And so in Montgomery County, it is only slightly majority white. And there are lots of places in Mississippi that are much whiter. And from the defense perspective, they have historically believed that they have faced a very hard time getting a fair trial in front of an all-white or nearly all-white jury. And when the trial was moved, it was moved both times to a place that was much whiter

demographically than Montgomery County. And so that's sort of the trade-off that the defense makes. Yeah. And if you do look at the record of the past six trials, Curtis Flowers has actually been more successful in trials that have been held in Montgomery County. So he's had two hung juries in Montgomery County compared to the first two trials, which were both convictions. Right. So yeah, I mean, there is this question of Right. Compared to the first two trials, which were both convictions. Right. So, yeah, I mean, there is this question of which one is the better option. I mean, I think that the other thing to consider that we didn't point out in the podcast, but I think about sometimes is when Curtis's case was tried locally to get down to 12 jurors, they had to start with hundreds of potential jurors. jurors. So at this point, there are so many people in that area who have been called to jury duty in this case and have gone through jury selection. So I don't even know about the chances of finding people who haven't gone through jury selection. And the other thing, too, that I think is

interesting to think about with this is, you know, if you have a trial in a big city, like a high-profile trial, of course the jurors get scrutinized for their verdict, especially if the public largely disagrees with the verdict. But it's not as personal. Right. So in Winona, if you are one of the 12 jurors who find Curtis guilty or not guilty or can't decide, everyone knows that you're going to be the juror that let Curtis go or the juror that made sure he was executed or the juror who couldn't make up their mind. And, you know, you're going to go to the bank and you're going to see someone related to one of the victim's families or you're going to go to the basketball game and you're going to see Curtis's family or whatever it is. And so I think that does make being a juror in this case really difficult because you are so public. Because you are so public. And so that, I think, is another thing that I know just from talking to people in Winona has made some people sort of wary of wanting to be on this story. Of course. Yeah.

Which is very understandable. So one person we've had a lot of questions about, you might not be surprised to hear, is the DA, Doug Evans. So the first thing people want to know is whether we've heard from him since the podcast has come out. We have not. No, we have not. Which is whether we've heard from him since the podcast has come out. We have not. No, we have not. Which is we'd be happy to talk to him. Yeah, I mean, we would, you know, I have reached out to him since the podcast has come out. We would still like to continue to talk with him. We did talk with him, of course, as people heard. And we included that in the podcast.

And especially going forward, you know, this is a case that is by no means over yet. And so as the elected district attorney, he has still a lot of involvement in this case going forward. So I do hope that he continues to talk to the public about the case, to explain some of his decisions in the case. And we'll certainly continue to reach out to him and hope that he does talk to us again. So I have a tweet here from, I'm probably going to get this wrong, sorry, Heather Catapult. So Heather Catapult tweeted, with multiple rulings of prosecutorial misconduct, how does Doug Evans remain assigned to subsequent trials? Yes, so Doug Evans really is his own boss. And so he doesn't even need to get assigned to a trial. So he just

is the district attorney. And so, you know, in the federal system, for example, he would have a supervisor who might say to him, you know, you did a really good job. I, you know, I think you should try it again, or I want you to try again, or I don't think you should try it again. But Doug Evans, as a district attorney, as the top prosecutor in that area, gets to decide that. The court could say, you are not allowed to try this case again, or something along those lines. But that has not happened in this case. And not for lack of trying by the defense. So Curtis's lawyers, have they tried to get him removed from the case? They have. They have tried to get him removed from the case. They've also tried more than once to convince the court to not allow Doug Evans to have any preemptory strikes.

This is in jury selection. Right. So, you know, Curtis's defense have pointed to the record of Doug Evans using a lot of his strikes to remove black people from the jury pool and have pointed to the record of Doug Evans using a lot of his strikes to remove black people from the jury pool and have said to the court, look in light of that, Curtis can't get a fair trial unless you take away Doug Evans' ability to strike those jurors. The courts have disagreed with that, and it's not a request that I am familiar with ever being upheld by a court or agreed to, just to point that out. But yeah, I mean, and of course, also the Curtis's defense have tried to get the judge removed from the case. As we pointed out in the podcast, and the judge basically gets to decide, should I remove myself from the case?

And the judge has said I should not. And when the judge was considering Judge Loper, whether to remove Doug Evans from the case, at one point, he asked Doug Evans, in court, is there any reason I should remove you from the case? And Doug Evans said, no. And so he then immediately decided, I'm not removing you from the case. So of course, one way that Doug Evans would no longer be on this case is if he was no longer district attorney. Right. So there have been questions about whether, does he have any plans to retire? Is anyone going to run against him? Do you know, are you aware of either, anything on either of those fronts? So he's going to be up for reelection in 2019, so next year.

And so far, there's no indication that he's going to retire. I mean, he's even given a public statement about maybe a year or so ago saying that he has no plans to retire. And so there's no indication that he's not going to run again. And of course, in the past, every time he's run, except for once, whenever he's run for reelection, he's run unopposed. And so there's also so far no indication, no one stepped forward to say they're running against him. And so we'll have to see what happens there. But right now, yeah, there's no indication that anything will happen other than he'll run for reelection. I have a tweet from Sean P. Conley.

He writes, do you expect Doug Evans to be reprimanded or punished in any way? He says the gentleman in charge of the bar complaints that was interviewed in the update podcast used the phrase, quote, trust the process. But confidence in the process doesn't seem to work for Curtis. quote, trust the process, but confidence in the process doesn't seem to work for Curtis. Yeah, so the question right now is whether or not the Bar Association is looking at all at Doug Evans. And we do now know the answer to that question, because we know now from one listener that has gone through now the process of filing a bar complaint against Doug Evans, which has not been decided on or ruled on in any way, but has been filed. And the bar complaint process is somewhat, you know, it's not entirely public. The Bar Association does not comment on that.

And so they don't comment on anything that they are currently investigating or even if they are currently investigating anything. But we do know and we've seen documents from one listener who's filed a bar complaint that one has been filed and that Doug Evans has responded to that bar complaint via a lawyer that he now has in Grenada, Mississippi. And so the Bar Association can take a couple of steps if it finds that a lawyer has engaged in conduct that is not allowed. And, you know, one of them is a private reprimand where a lawyer basically gets a private look like, you know, even being called before a judge and being read a reprimand. It's very rare for a lawyer to be disbarred. And so we'll just have to see what happens with that. We have had people wonder as well if the feds would ever get involved. So if anyone's looking into the possibility that there may have been civil rights violations here that the federal government might take an interest in. Right. Like we think about that, for example, when you think about Ferguson, where the federal government did intervene in Ferguson. There's no indication that that's happening here.

So we did reach out to the Justice Department and we asked them, are you looking at anything in Winona, Mississippi or in this judicial district? And they responded and they said, we don't comment. We're not going to comment on that. We don't comment. And basically, we don't comment on that kind of thing. But there's no indication, you know, just having been in Winona a lot since the podcast came out and talking to a lot of people there, that there is Justice Department involvement in the case. department involvement in the case. So some people have written in and asked specifically about what's called a Brady violation, wondering why people aren't investigating Doug Evans for potential Brady violations. And so a Brady violation is when a prosecutor fails to turn

over required material to the defense. And we talked about this in one of our episodes when we were talking about Willie James Hemphill. Right. So this is material that could tend to show that the defendant is not guilty. Right. So very critical information. And so typically the way that this works is even if a court were to find that, yes, a prosecutor did not turn over Brady material, something they're required to turn over, that there's really no consequences for that outside of what happens in the courtroom in that particular case.

And so the way that the system is set up right now, if you commit a Brady violation, what that means, often the conviction gets overturned. And that's the consequence for that, which, of course, no prosecutor wants that. And so that is a consequence of a sort, but it is not something that then prohibits the prosecutor from continuing to try other cases. The thing I should point out about a Brady violation, however, is that, like we said earlier, all a Brady violation is, is the prosecutor has something that would tend to show that the defendant is innocent and it hasn't been turned over to the defense. And it doesn't mean that the prosecutor is hiding information. The prosecutor doesn't

have to hide that information. I mean, it can mean that, but it doesn't have to. It can mean that, absolutely. It could be intentional. I know I'm sitting on DNA that shows that another person did it and I'm not turning it over. But it could also be, you know, in an office somewhere, there's some notebook there that's actually Brady material that should have been turned over. And even if I didn't know about it as the DA, I'm still responsible for turning it over. But certainly when we talk about people who want certain changes in the criminal justice system, we're talking about the Brady violations that seem more intentional, where someone has made a decision, which is a decision that they're not supposed to make, to sit on evidence that shows that someone else did it or shows that the person who is sitting

in prison for the crime most likely did not do it. And that is a very serious issue, and especially, of course, in death penalty cases. Hello, my name is Thomas Cunningham calling from California. And my question is whether or not you all have encountered during your reporting any official entity in Mississippi that has seemed at all sympathetic to the evidence and reporting that you've uncovered. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for the question. So I guess what I would say to that is the short answer to that is no. We do know, however, that the attorney general's office for the state of Mississippi, which is now representing the state in the appeal of Curtis Flowers, has been dismissive of some of our findings, the findings that have some of the findings that have been mentioned by the defense. they have been very dismissive of the reporting about Willie James Hemphill. So they have said he was not an alternate suspect.

Yes, he was in jail, but he was not an alternate suspect in this case. And so that has really been the only official response so far, other than, of course, the response in my interview with Doug Evans, where he also responded to, for example, Odell reversing himself. We actually reached Odell Hallman. We reached him by Facebook and then later by phone. He's in Parchman Prison right now. He's serving three life sentences for murdering three people. But we were able to reach him on an illicit cell phone. That he had. That he had. And so we've gotten a lot of questions about this and people have wondered, since the podcast aired, is Odell still on Facebook and does he still have that phone? Well, I don't know if he still has a phone, but he is still on

Facebook. And he's on Facebook under a fake name, which is what he's been on Facebook under for some time. But he's still on Facebook. A while ago, I checked to see if he had posted or liked anything and he was still liking some stuff. So he's still on Facebook. And we contacted the prison. This is Parchman Prison. Right, Parchman Prison. We contacted the Mississippi Department of Corrections and asked a spokesperson for that department, you know, why Odell has a cell phone?

What is going on? I mean, he's serving three consecutive life sentences for killing three people. And we also know that he has used Facebook to send messages to the victim's families, the people he killed, asking for money and contacting them in other ways. And they did not really provide any information. They did not provide any information. They said, we're not going to comment on that. We're not going to tell you whether or not we searched his cell following that. But all we do know is that somehow he's still on Facebook. And, you know, the reason why I point out the part about the victim's families is it's like prisoners sometimes have access to the Internet, you know, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about a sanctioned access to the Internet. We're talking about someone who is breaking the rules in prison, who's using the breaking of rules to contact

victims, family members of the crime that he's in prison for, the murders, and the prison, whatever they're doing, they haven't stopped him from being on Facebook. Okay, I have a totally different kind of question now. This is from on Twitter from M. Jacques Leslie. They write, I would love to hear more about your personal and professional experiences as journalists reporting on this story. What made it different from other stories you've done? What made it similar? What was it like moving to Mississippi to report? And then Juris Dogtor writes, what was your favorite part of living in Winona? And this is my favorite question. Were you known around town as the reporter woman? Yes, definitely true. Yeah. I mean, both me and our producer, Natalie, were known, I think, as, you know, those two ladies from the radio,

the people that are reporting on Curtis's case, those ladies from Minnesota. It was no secret, obviously, that we're in this town reporting. And so especially for that long. It was no secret, obviously, that we're in this town reporting, especially for that long. And I should say, too, that so many people in Winona were incredibly welcoming to us and really helpful as well in just practical things. I'm trying to find where someone lives, and they actually live in the third trailer behind a house somewhere, and there's no actual address on that trailer. So really we were helped a great deal by people in town and in that area just giving us even the most basic information.

And of course we were there for so long that people knew us. I mean, to the point where sometimes we would knock on someone's door and, you know, they'd come out and they'd say, oh, I was figuring at some point or another you would probably knock on my door because you knocked on my cousin's door, my uncle's door, my grandmother's doors, my pastor's door, my best friend's door, my neighbor's doors on both sides. So here we are. And, you know, also, I think as a reporter, one of the advantages to having this much time, too, is that, you know, it's not reasonable to show up and demand that people trust you. You need to earn people's trust. And sometimes what that looks like is often what that looks

like, I think, is putting in time. And so if you've talked to other people in someone's family, for example, or on their block, and those people say, you know, that went well, they seem like they're serious about their job and they listened, Then, you know, the next person might hear about that and feel, okay, I know a little bit about this person. I'm a little more comfortable or even just seeing someone around, you know, we weren't from there, but at the same time, after a certain point, it wasn't like we were strangers, that we were someone that people knew in the town. And a lot of this reporting too was done just by knocking on doors. In fact, that was largely how it was done. So we would get up in the morning. We'd have a list of people, a long list that we're

hoping to talk to. And we would just start going down the list and going to people's houses, seeing who was home. And then we just do that again the next day and the next day and the next day. Hello, In The Dark. I just had a question about the fact that a lot of the people doing the interviewing on your podcast are women. And I was just wondering, as women interviewing men, did you feel that the men you interviewed were less likely to be confrontational or aggressive with you because you were women? Or the opposite, did you ever feel concerned for your safety as women who were occasionally confronting or interviewing men who had a history sometimes of dangerous or violent behavior? Thanks very much for all of the work you do. This is Lindsay

calling from Tokyo. First of all, thank you for calling from Tokyo. That's great. Thank you for calling from Tokyo. That's awesome. That's great. Yeah, you know, to me, I think of it more as a female reporter. I think in some ways there's an advantage because you don't seem threatening to someone. So, and I think in general, reporters should try to not seem threatening. You know, I think the best approach is a low-key, non-confrontational approach, like treat people decently. And I do think that if you treat people

decently with respect, then you increase the chances that they will do the same versus if you go in, I've got a list of questions and I'm here to demand answers and I'm not leaving. If you go in, you know, I've got a list of questions and I'm here to demand answers and I'm not leaving. Well, then it's reasonable to expect that people might not like that. I mean, I wouldn't like that. I do think, you know, I have been in past projects where it's definitely clear that people are sort of underestimating what might be happening because I was a female reporter. I think that a lot of the concerns in this case would be the same in terms of safety concerns. And I also would say too that there's a difference as well as being a white reporter that we've thought about in a lot of these exchanges as well. So I

think that all of the things about you impact the project for better or worse in different ways in the same project. And I didn't feel like the people we were talking to were less likely to be angry with me because I was a woman. I will say that. I mean, it's a case with strong emotions. Sometimes people are just angry. But I do think that we reduce the chance of that by, like I said, just being reasonable. And do you feel like, I mean, I think a lot about the nature of this reporting was so much about, like you were saying, just knocking on doors,

just going up to someone's house who is not expecting you, carrying a very large microphone, like a very large microphone. So large that people rightfully ask, is that a video camera? Microphone, right? 6 p.m., starting to get a little dark. I do think it may have, it felt like sometimes an advantage, for sure. Yeah, definitely. And also, when you add to that, the fact that people have often seen us before we knock on their door. So, you know, it's like the combination of those things. I mean, so I think that's where I would, I wouldn't say something like, there's no way that a male reporter, an all-male team could do this work. I think that would be ridiculous to say that. But I think, so I think it's a combination of things. And I think the most successful reporters who I really look up to really do try.

I mean, you want to put people at ease. Like, you are only there to try to figure out what happened. And so you think a lot about that. You know, if there's a reason why someone is really going to feel uncomfortable about you just showing up at their house because of some past experience, well, you don't do that then. You try to think of a different way. You know, you want to figure out, well, how can I show, not convince, but show this person that I'm going to be responsible? You know, do I need to send them links to my stories that

I've done in the past? Do I need to have a person I've interviewed in the past call this person and explain what it was like to be interviewed? So you're always thinking about those things. And one of the things I do feel is very, was so important for the story was that just for the reporting that we did have the time that we had and that we lived in that area, because I just do not think that the story could have been done thoroughly and responsibly without that amount of time and without being in Mississippi. Just on a practical level, there's tons of people we would never have been able to reach. We would have never gotten any documents. But just, you know, this is a complex story and it needs a lot of time going into it we don't know what we don't know of course um we don't know what we're going to find and so i'm just grateful that i mean it's very unusual to be able to have this much time or to be able to have a team of five people full-time working on a project one project for more than a

year so i think that hopefully when we show in the podcast a little bit of this, you know, when we show Parker scanning, scanning, scanning all these documents, people can get a sense of why investigative reporting takes time and maybe why it's valuable, why it's something that people should really think about supporting because, you know, facts aren't cheap sometimes to come by. You know, some are. That's great, but not always. That's going to be our new fundraising slogan. Facts aren't cheap sometimes to come by. You know, some are. That's great. But not always. That's going to be our new fundraising slogan. Facts aren't cheap.

Yeah, it's good. Okay. So, Samara, I have a question for you. Oh, okay. So we got a tweet from Ms. Becker, SPPS teacher. And she tweeted at us, because we are studying this podcast as a class, which, by the way, is great. So great. And a number of people have done this.

So she says, because we are studying this podcast as a class, most of my questions are format related. How did you go about determining the structure? How did you decide what info stays in and what goes? Were there any assumptions that you had going in that proved false? So as a senior producer, what would you say? Oh, man. So I think structure is, it's like the hardest thing to do in a project like this. Like, it is the thing that keeps me up at night. It is just the most intense intellectual exercise,

because we reported this story for more than a year. So in the course of that year, we generate so much material, you know, findings, documents, tape, hours and hundreds of hours of tape, notes. And so we have to take all of this material and somehow turn it into a story that people want to listen to. And figuring out how we tell that story is really, really hard. Especially in this story, I think, where you have six of everything. Six trials, four victims. It was a story that has happened over many, many years. It was complicated, too. So complicated. You know, a lot of legal procedure.

The facts of the case were very complicated. So it was just a hard story to tell. And so I think for us, even from the beginning, the reporting was always driven by a question. You know, as investigative reporters, that's what we're doing. We're trying to answer a question. And the question for us was, how was Curtis Flowers tried six times for the same crime? And that was the question that drove all of our reporting. And then when we took all that reporting, we tried to turn it into a story. It was also the question that drove how we structured the story. So we took all this material that we had and we, you know,

we started trying to make sense of it. And so we were, you know, we put it on note cards and we put those note cards up on the wall and we moved them around and we considered all these different ways to start and ways to end and, you know, what should go in and what should not go in. And, you know, to the question of what should go in and what should not go in. And, you know, to the question of what should go in and what gets cut, it really comes back to that question. Like, does this piece of information, does this story help to answer that question? How was Curtis Flowers tried six times for the crime? And if something doesn't answer that question, even if it's a really good anecdote or it's a really good scene or it's really great tape, it doesn't go in because

it's not in service of that question. We're not, I mean, we're not primarily storytellers if you think about it, because then we could tell any kind of story. Right. We're primarily journalists. So the story's got to serve the journalism. Right. In that way.

I always think, too, about because we are multiple episodes, we have to think, and we've talked a lot about this, about what's the narrative arc for the whole story? But then what's the narrative arc for each episode? And so a lot of time we spent was, does this go in episode three? Is this an episode five thing? Well, if it is, then episode six is affected. Now it needs the episode two. Episode six is affected. Now it needs the episode two.

I mean, it really is this moving thing. And it's you make one decision and it requires changes, you know, even very far away from that one change. It is such a brain puzzle. It really is. And, yeah, there is some really great stuff that didn't make it in, you know, because it didn't answer the question or just because it didn't it didn't fit the structure. And also, of course, a really critical thing to talk about, too, is we're talking about four people shot in the head at their job. of death, murder, trauma, loss, and then also for the perspective of Curtis's family. So you have a lot going on right to begin with. And so you have a lot of decisions that you need to make about how to tell that part of the story responsibly and how to tell that part of the story.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think I'm grateful for our editor, Catherine Winter, who you never hear on the podcast, but you really do because her work is throughout. And it's a process of making many, many edits, going through it many times, and usually ending up very far from where we started with the rough draft. And then as far as this question of were there any assumptions we had going in that proved false, I mean, I really think we try to start with no assumptions. You know, we want to go in really just curious and trying to figure out what happened. I don't think we, I'm thinking back to when we started this reporting, we were just curious. Yeah, I'm trying to think of an assumption that we might have had. You know, as reporters, we're actually probably the toughest on some things. I mean, for example, one of the things that we spent a lot of time looking for in the records and talking to people was, is there any evidence against Curtis, really damning evidence, that for whatever reason was not admitted at trial?

You know, but we look and look and look. We don't find any. So we don't even go in assuming that the court record is all of the evidence against Curtis. And also, you know, as reporters, you're trained to be a really dramatic moment and often for us it is not right because it is immediately followed by like if i'm telling you something or you're telling me something it is immediately followed by so many questions it can be a little deflating at times you think you've come up with something really big and you bring it to the rest of the team and they're like but well you're like oh man like yeah did you ask it this way yeah what did this other person say right because could it mean this instead right could it mean something different well now you're going to need to talk to these 10 people i can't think of a single moment that of a finding that wasn't like that i I mean, that's the job also of the whole team and the editors is to be skeptical and to constantly be thinking, you know, what are we missing? What are we leaving out? What is the way in which all these facts add up to something different? And that's really the

behind the scenes work of reporting. Yeah. So speaking of Curtis Flowers himself, we got a lot of questions about the fact that we couldn't talk to him. And one person wondered, did the prison prevent you from talking to Mr. Flowers based on a request from his defense team? So the answer to that is no. The prison just denied it and denied not only me visiting Curtis in prison, but also me interviewing him on the phone. Did they say why they were denying the request? No. And actually, I brought the emails here so I could just be more precise about what this looked like, this exchange with the prison. So this is from February of 2018. And so I emailed the spokesperson for the Department of Corrections requesting an interview with Curtis Flowers. And she wrote back and she said, this is her email. Hi, Madeline, your request to interview Flowers is not approved. My apology for the delayed response because it had been some time. So I wrote back. Thank you for the reply. What is the reason my request was not approved?

She wrote back to me just this one line. So this is the entirety of her email. She wrote, quote, hello, a reason was not provided, end quote. So that's it from the prison. And so once the prison denied our request, both to interview Curtis in person or on the phone, we asked the defense if we could interview Curtis basically over letters. And they said no. And we also found out from Curtis Flowers' family that the defense had instructed Curtis Flowers not to write back to us. So we have a combination here of the prison

denying us access, the defense denying us access, and so we have this person at the center of our story who we cannot so far talk to, although I hope still one day to be able to speak with. So here's an interesting question from Damian Shields. If you weren't a reporter, would you have been allowed to visit Curtis in prison? If so, could you send someone in undercover who is not known to be a reporter, but is well-versed in this case and in the dark to interview him? Okay. Let's take the first part of that question first.

So if you weren't a reporter, would you have been allowed to visit Curtis? Maybe. Let's take the first part of that question first. general, you know, Curtis puts people on a list, the Department of Corrections reviews that list and approves it, and then those people can visit Curtis during visiting hours at Parkland Prison. So maybe, the answer to that is maybe that would have worked. What about the second part about sending in an undercover? No, we would never do that. So we do not engage in undercover reporting. We do not engage in undercover reporting. So, no. Hi, this is Molly Hughes calling from Rochester, New York. First, I'd just like to say you guys are doing an amazing job, an incredible and courageous job with both seasons of In the Dark. So, thank you for that. Second, my question is regarding if Curtis Flowers, if the Supreme Court does rule to overturn his conviction, and if Curtis is released, number one, would he return to Winona? And number two, if so, would he or should he have any fear for his personal safety if he returns? Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

So I haven't talked to Curtis about this, so I don't know what he would say. But his family has told me that they don't think Curtis would return to Winona, Mississippi, if he got out of prison. And that the reason for that is that they just don't think Curtis would be safe there. And, you know, in the podcast, we get into the fact that the family's house has already burned down once during one of the, you know, in the middle of the trials happening. during one of the, you know, in the middle of the trials happening. And more than that, though, you know, everywhere I went in Winona, whether I was talking to white people who thought Curtis was guilty or black people who thought he was innocent, everybody shared this one belief, which was that Curtis is not safe in Winona, Mississippi. And because people would want to kill him if he was out.

We also know that one of the victim's family members, the father, Randy Stewart, the father of Bobo Stewart, the youngest victim, had plotted to kill Curtis before and told us that. One of the people who told me that Curtis wouldn't be safe there is the current elected constable. So a member of elected law enforcement, a guy named Jerry Bridges. Basically, he said something like, well, if he gets out, we'll have another murder. You know, just it's to him, it's that certain. And so it does not seem like a safe situation for Curtis. Of course, who knows if that would actually happen. But that is absolutely the feeling in Winona that it would not make any sense for him to stay there. On the other hand, that's the only, you know, that's where

he lived most of his life. But yeah. So a genre of messages that we've gotten a lot of have to do with people wanting to help Curtis. And I'll play you just one example of this. Here we go. What can we do to make sure that Curtis gets a fair trial? Who do we write a letter to? Where is our time best spent? I'm just wondering if you know where that energy should be channeled. Thanks so much. So we've gotten this question a lot, these types of questions. And I think it's important to point out that our job as reporters is to be reporters. And so we are not activists for one side or another. We're not involved in protests or anything like that. It's really important the way that we look at those facts in a democracy after that, what people decide to do, what Doug Evans decides to do with the defense, what people listening decide to do is up to those people to decide. So our role as reporters is really as the gatherer of the facts and the person who puts them into context, which is important, but is not the person then who takes the next step, whatever that next step might be. And I think, like, I can't stress the importance of independence enough. You know, our job strongly depends on us showing up to a story and saying,

truthfully, I don't care what the facts are. I don't need them to be this way or that way. I just want to know what they are. And the way that you get to that point and maintain that point is by truly separating yourself, I think, from that type of action. So when we get these questions, I usually respond with some type of response like that. You know, it's our job to expose an injustice. Everyone else's job is to figure out what to do with that. You know, it's sort of a way to think about it. justice. Everyone else's job is to figure out what to do with that. You know, it's sort of a way to think about it. Okay, so our last question comes from Brandon Irby, and he asks, any leads for season three? So we are starting to work on ideas for season three. We haven't picked a story yet, and we will be working on that a lot, like trying to decide what story to do right now in the coming

months. It's one of the biggest decisions, maybe the biggest decision that we lot, like trying to decide what story to do right now in the coming months. It's one of the biggest decisions, maybe the biggest decision that we make. And so we tend to spend a lot of time researching and reporting a couple of stories before we decide which one. So stay tuned, but we don't have a secret story idea that we're not telling you about that we're currently reporting. And if you do have ideas for us, you can send us tips at investigatethis at apmreports.org. And the other thing I guess I would add is, as you can tell from season two, our reporting takes a lot of time. So please be patient and know that we're working to bring you season three. Thanks, everyone, for sending in your questions and for listening to the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. And we've just really loved hearing from everybody over the whole run of the podcast.

And please stay in touch. And also, don't forget to sign up for our email listserv if you want to hear all the latest news about the Curtis Flowers case and just news about In the Dark and what we're up to. Definitely. Also, we are continuing to post stuff to our website, inthedarkpodcast.org. And right now what we're putting up, actually, while we're recording this, are all of the transcripts that our reporter Parker Yesko tracked down at all the courthouses in Mississippi. So all the raw material that made up our jury analysis. And we'll also be posting updates about what's going on with Curtis in his case on our website. And there's also, if you haven't checked it out, there's just a lot more information about Curtis's case, about juries, all kinds of things,

photos and videos on our website, which is inthedarkpodcast.org. In the Dark is reported and produced by me, Madeline Barron, senior producer Samara Fremark, producer Natalie Jablonski, associate producer Raymond Tungakar, and reporters Parker Yesko and Will Kraft. In the Dark is edited by Catherine Winter. Web editors are Dave Mann and Andy Cruz. The editor-in-chief of APM Reports is Chris Worthington. This episode was mixed by Johnny Vince Evans.

Hi, this is David Remnick, and I'm pleased to share the news is Chris Worthington. This episode was mixed by Johnny Vince Evans. that we can all relate to about identity and technology and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot, along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films, at newyorker.com slash video. From PRX.