I was listening to a podcast that I like a lot today. It’s called In The Dark and it’s by American Public Media. Season two is about Curtis Flowers, a man in a small town in Mississippi who was tried six times for the same crime. He won appeals, had mistrials and the same prosecutor – Doug Evans – had tried every case. In Season two of the podcast, the journalists dug deeply into the six trials. They talked to witnesses and did a lot of research on the case. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, where a 7-2 vote overturned his latest conviction and death sentence. In today’s episode, we learned that Mr. Flowers was granted bail pending the State’s decision to try him a seventh time. He had spent 23 years in jail prior to being granted bail. It’s a nice bit of good news in an otherwise terrible story of criminal injustice.

Normally, I would write about these sorts of things on my personal blog – maddogesquire.com. But I was interested when they talked about the fact that District Attorney Doug Evans didn’t attend the bail hearing of Curtis Flowers. They found out that Evans was at a swearing in ceremony for men and women who were recently elected to office. They said that Evans won after running unopposed. You can read a little more about that here.

I know nothing else about how Doug Evans has performed as District Attorney in Winona, Mississippi other than what I have learned from this podcast. But what I know about him from the Curtis Flowers case is quite enough. I’m in this race because I think voters deserve a choice, not another election where one party or the other runs unopposed in the general election. Whichever Republican wins the primary in March, they now know they will have an opponent who will push them and fight for all of the voters of District 4 all the way up to August 6. It’s a shame that a District Attorney like Doug Evans can get away with what he has done in the Curtis Flowers case (listen to the podcast – you’ll see) and yet still not get an opponent in the election. Hearing that today made me that much more satisfied and excited to be in this race.