[2] The Supreme Court ruled that Flowers' case fell under Batson and that the state inappropriately removed most of the potential black jurors during the trials.

States are generally free to legislate their own rules and procedures for peremptory challenges as long as they don't violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Before Batson overturned Swain v. Alabama defendants seeking to reverse criminal convictions required far more than a showing of race-based peremptory challenges in a single trial.

At the last step the trial court decides if the prosecutor's race-neutral explanation was mere pretext for purposeful discrimination.

[5] Flowers sought review for the prosecutor's "history of adjudicated purposeful discrimination" at the United States Supreme Court.

The Mississippi Supreme Court reaffirmed their decision, once again ruling that the prosecutor had not been racially biased in his use of peremptory challenges during Flowers' trial.

[11] In its history of 6 trials prosecuting Flowers for murder, the previous 5 of which ended in mistrials or vacated convictions, the state struck 41 of the 42 prospective black jurors.

This disparate questioning casts doubt on a prosecutor's race neutral explanations and "can be probative of discriminatory intent".

The Court found that the peremptory strike of Carolyn Wright was "motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent".

[10] Clarence Thomas wrote the dissenting opinion, which was joined in part by Neil Gorsuch, stating that they would have upheld Flowers’ conviction.

[14] Thomas’ opinion suggests Batson v. Kentucky (1986), which forbids prosecutors from using race as a factor in making peremptory challenges in jury selection, was wrongly decided and should be overruled.