WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Mississippi man who claims his capital murder trial was compromised by the prosecution’s removal of Black jurors for discriminatory reasons.
Terry Pitchford was sentenced to death in connection with a 2004 robbery that resulted in the killing of Reuben Britt, the owner of Crossroads Grocery near Grenada, Mississippi. During the 2006 trial, more than half of the potential jurors were Black, yet only one Black juror remained on the panel that convicted Pitchford. Pitchford contends that prosecutors struck jurors on the basis of race, a practice that his legal team argues violated the Batson precedent, which allows defendants to challenge jury exclusions motivated by race, ethnicity, sex, or other protected characteristics.
Prosecutors dismissed four of the five Black jurors without conducting voir dire, and the trial judge denied Pitchford’s Batson claim. Under Batson v. Kentucky, such claims require a three-step process: presenting preliminary evidence of racial discrimination, allowing prosecutors to give a race-neutral explanation, and then having the court evaluate all evidence. Pitchford maintains he only fired nonlethal pellets during the robbery, while prosecutors argued he believed a .38-caliber revolver used by his accomplice was loaded with live ammunition, making him culpable for capital murder.
The case draws comparisons to former District Attorney Doug Evans’ handling of the Curtis Flowers trials, where the Supreme Court overturned a conviction in 2019 over similar claims of racially biased juror strikes. Evans later resigned in 2023. A federal judge initially overturned Pitchford’s death sentence in 2023, citing the trial court’s failure to allow the defense to rebut state arguments, but the Fifth Circuit reinstated the sentence.
Current and former prosecutors highlight that discriminatory peremptory strikes remain common, decades after Batson. Studies cited in the appeal show Black jurors continue to be removed at disproportionately high rates, including a 2018 Mississippi study finding Black prospective jurors were over four times as likely to be struck as white jurors.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear Pitchford’s appeal early next year, potentially clarifying the constitutional obligations of trial courts in cases involving alleged racial discrimination in jury selection.