Supreme Court Rules for Black Death Row Inmate on Bias

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Thursday in favor of Terry Pitchford, a Black death row inmate from Mississippi, finding that racial bias in the composition of his jury violated his constitutional rights. The decision could have significant implications for death penalty cases nationwide.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, and Clarence Thomas.

“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,” Kavanaugh wrote, according to AP News.

The Case

Pitchford, now 40, was 18 in 2004 when he and a friend, Eric Bullin, decided to rob the Crossroads Grocery near Grenada, Mississippi. Bullin shot the store owner, Reuben Britt, three times, fatally wounding him. Because Bullin was under 18, he was ineligible for the death penalty. Pitchford was tried for capital murder and sentenced to death.

At trial, the jury consisted of 11 white jurors and only one Black juror — in Grenada County, which is approximately 40% Black. District Attorney Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a documented history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, used peremptory strikes to remove four of the five remaining Black people in the jury pool.

Judge Joseph Loper, who also presided over the Curtis Flowers case, accepted all four of Evans’ explanations for striking Black jurors without conducting a proper analysis of whether race was the reason, as NBC News reported.

The Batson Framework

The Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky established that jurors cannot be excused based on race and set up a three-step process: the objecting party must show an inference of discrimination, the striking party must provide race-neutral explanations, and the judge must determine whether there was purposeful discrimination.

Pitchford’s case centered on whether the trial judge properly conducted the third step — and whether Pitchford’s lawyers did enough to object to Loper’s failure to do so. Kavanaugh found that Pitchford’s lawyers made the necessary objections and that the Mississippi Supreme Court acted unreasonably in ruling otherwise, as The Guardian reported.

The Curtis Flowers Connection

The case is directly linked to Flowers v. Mississippi (2019), in which the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Curtis Flowers, another Black Mississippi inmate prosecuted by Doug Evans and tried before Judge Loper. In that case, Kavanaugh described Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.”

Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in 2020 after Evans turned the case over to state officials. Pitchford’s legal team cited the Flowers case as a key precedent.

Dissenting View

In dissent, Gorsuch argued that Pitchford failed to show that “no fair-minded judge could rule as the Mississippi court did” and that the court had overstepped its authority under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which limits federal court review of state convictions.

“As I see things, Mr. Pitchford has failed to satisfy either of these standards,” Gorsuch wrote. NBC News reported that Gorsuch added, “if the court’s decision is mistaken, at least its impact is limited.”

What Happens Next

The decision revives a federal judge’s 2023 ruling that overturned Pitchford’s conviction. If the conviction is overturned, the state could seek to retry him.

“Mr. Pitchford is now entitled to a fair trial in the state court,” Joseph Perkovich, Pitchford’s attorney, said in a statement, according to AP News.

Broader Implications

The ruling reinforces the Batson framework and the requirement that trial judges must actively engage in determining whether race-neutral explanations for striking jurors are pretextual. The decision sends a strong signal that federal courts can intervene under AEDPA when state courts fail to properly apply Batson.

The ruling comes seven years after the Flowers case, demonstrating that the Supreme Court is willing to continue policing racial discrimination in jury selection, even in a conservative-leaning court. The split 5-4 vote, however, indicates deep ideological divisions on the court regarding the scope of federal habeas review.

Key questions remain: Will Mississippi seek to retry Pitchford, or will it release him? And will the ruling lead to further challenges from other death row inmates with similar claims of racial bias in jury selection?