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A compulsively readable insider’s account of the most prosecuted case in American law—and what it tells us about race bias in jury selection.
Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi, stood trial six times over more than two decades for a crime he did not commit—repeatedly facing nearly all-white juries after the prosecutor repeatedly struck Black jurors.
From a member of Flowers’s defense team, The Color of Conviction is a deeply reported, riveting examination of the case that gripped the nation and exposed the fatal flaw in how we choose our juries. Tucker Carrington draws on historical evidence and firsthand experience to reveal how prosecutors continue to shape juries along racial lines, despite the Supreme Court’s hollow safeguards and faith in fair play.
Incisive and urgent, this book moves beyond tracing Flowers’s fight for justice. It challenges us to reckon with the central role of race in our society, and forces us to confront a troubling question: What does a fair trial really mean when race and justice are inextricably bound?
Tucker Carrington is Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and director of the George C. Cochran Innocence Project. He is coauthor of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South.
“Curating little-known backstories from Winona, Mississippi, and leading constitutional cases like Dred Scott and Batson v. Kentucky, The Color of Conviction connects the dots of Jim Crow–era courthouse practices to the unprecedented six prosecutions of Curtis Flowers and his eventual exoneration. Along the way, we see Thurgood Marshall anticipate as a visionary, Clarence Thomas rage a difficult truth, and Brett Kavanaugh, after feinting at the power of history and math, retreat behind the fig leaf. But even if today's Supreme Court choses to sidestep difficult questions about race bias in our criminal justice system, powerful truths from the storytelling here—the extraordinary human costs of race discrimination on individuals, communities, and justice itself—animate successful efforts elsewhere, like recent, groundbreaking Racial Justice Act litigation in California and North Carolina. Advocates persist, the struggle continues, the arc bends.”—Henderson Hill, Codirector, RedressNC; Founder, 8th Amendment Project; and former Senior Counsel, ACLU
“In The Color of Conviction, Tucker Carrington details the shameful, tragic history of how racism continues to infect jury service, the civic duty at the heart of our legal system. The story is anchored by the odyssey of Curtis Flowers, a Black Mississippian who was tried six times for the same crime, always facing a jury from which Blacks were repeatedly struck. Flowers spent nearly two decades on death row for a murder he did not commit. In accessible, taut prose, Carrington explains how the systematic exclusion of people of color from criminal juries has denied justice to Black defendants and dignity to Black citizens. But what makes this book so singular—and necessary—is its overarching narrative: a beautiful, deftly woven history that points the way from our racist past to the possibility of a better future. And it leads us to engage a profound and sacred truth: we are all part of this together.”—Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ
“A remarkable exposé and analysis of the many ways in which racial prejudice is deployed or tolerated in the selection of juries and, indeed, the administration of criminal law generally. It is clearly written, well organized, full of vivid facts, and anchored by deep knowledge of relevant law. Carrington’s book is an excellent, albeit sobering, excavation of a long-running scandal in American criminal ‘justice.’”—Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and author of Race, Crime, and the Law
“When the Supreme Court takes up a case about a wrongful conviction, it's typically to single out just one isolated issue among the catastrophic pileup of injustices that contributed to the imprisonment of an innocent person. Media coverage and commentary on the subsequent ruling tend to home in only on that narrow scope, leaving the public with an incomplete picture of just how broken the legal system really is. In The Color of Conviction, Carrington pulls readers deep into the haunting details of one such case—the relentless, decades-long persecution of Curtis Flowers. In a lively, lucid narrative, Carrington, a friend, walks readers through the legal and procedural history but also the relevant history of race and justice in both Mississippi and the United States. He leaves little doubt that, much as we and the system itself would like to pretend otherwise, our courts are still stalked by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Carrington tells Flowers's story with the legal precision of an elite innocence lawyer, but also with a warm and relatable humanity, a dry wit, and the earned indignation of a lifelong brawler for justice.”—Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop and coauthor (with Tucker Carrington) of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist
“Every so often an important—no, crucial—story falls into the most capable of hands. Carrington, a diviner of innocence, devoted historian, and Southern-style raconteur, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Color of Conviction, his kinetic telling of Curtis Flowers’s legal odyssey, keeps you amped, entertained, and outraged, as it gently breaks your heart—and proves that our system of justice must do better.”—Dean King, New York Times bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara and Guardians of the Valley
“Southern gothic meets John Grisham, The Color of Conviction shatters the halls of justice with the epic story of how the most prosecuted Black man in US history took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Inspiring and infuriating, this very necessary book might send you to law school, or to the local courthouse, to throw a brick.”—Paul Butler, author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men