Judge denies bond for alleged killer of two Mississippi police officers
Published 6:05 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2020
A Mississippi judge on Wednesday denied defense attorneys’ request to set bond for a man awaiting trial in the 2018 shooting deaths of two police officers.
Marquis A. Flowers, 27, sat silently between his attorneys during a status hearing in Lincoln County Circuit Court, the Daily Leader reported.
Circuit Judge Michael Taylor said in his ruling that based on exhibits, relevant law and the Constitution, bail can be denied and should be in this case, especially considering Flowers’s history of failing to appear in Adams County Circuit Court while released on bond in a different case. Taylor said the charges of capital murder also weighed heavily in the decision.
Flowers was indicted Oct. 28 on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Brookhaven police Cpl. Zach Moak, 31, and patrol officer James White, 35, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Flowers pleaded not guilty Nov. 12 to all three counts.
The officers were killed Sept. 29, 2018, while responding to a call about shots being fired at a home in Brookhaven.
Flowers was previously convicted of auto burglary charges in south Mississippi’s Lincoln and Pike counties. He was charged in Natchez with taking a motor vehicle and four counts of auto burglary, fleeing from authorities in a high-speed chase in February 2017.
He later turned himself in. Released on bail, Flowers was a fugitive at the time of the Brookhaven shootings after failing to appear for a court date in Adams County.
Flowers’ parole was revoked after the Brookhaven officers were killed, and he has remained in custody. He is being held in the Adams County jail. Another status hearing in the capital murder case is set for June 9. The district attorney has said he will pursue the death penalty once the case goes to trial.