{"id":1926,"date":"2026-05-28T16:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2026-05-28T16:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:07:17","slug":"supreme-court-sides-with-mississippi-man-on-death-row-in-racial-bias-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1926","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court sides with Mississippi man on death row in racial bias case"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a 5-4 vote, the court found Terry Pitchford should have had the opportunity to challenge the dismissal of four Black potential jurors.<\/strong><\/p>

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Supreme Court in Washington. (Al Drago\/Bloomberg News)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a Mississippi man who was sent to death row for his role in the murder of shopkeeper, upholding a lower court\u2019s decision to vacate his conviction because of potential racial bias in jury selection.<\/p>\n

In a 5-4 vote, the court found Terry Pitchford, who is Black, did not have the opportunity to challenge the dismissal of four Black potential jurors. It is the second time the high court has effectively thrown out a capital case after the same Mississippi prosecutor <\/b>was accused of excluding Black jurors.<\/p>\n

Pitchford<\/a> was convicted of murder in 2006 and sentenced to death by a jury in Mississippi. It was his partner who fatally shot shop owner Reuben Britt with a .22-caliber pistol during the armed robbery, according to court filings. Pitchford, who was 18 at the time of the robbery, was accused of being an accomplice.<\/p>\n

For two decades, Pitchford had argued his conviction was not valid, pointing to what he said were racially biased selections of the jurors who heard the case. Only one of the 12 jurors was Black \u2014 in a county that was 40 percent African American, according to Pitchford\u2019s filings. More troubling, Pitchford says, is that those jurors were selected by Doug Evans, a prosecutor with a history of maneuvering to keep Black people off juries.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the high court <\/b>reversed the conviction<\/a> of another Black Mississippi man, Curtis Flowers, whom Evans also prosecuted in a capital murder case. Flowers was tried six times. The justices found, 7-2, that Evans \u2014 now retired \u2014 had worked relentlessly to keep Black people off the jury.<\/p>\n

Evans made similar maneuvers during Pitchford\u2019s trial, selecting a disproportionate number of White jurors compared with Black ones, Pitchford\u2019s attorneys argued. By the time the judge had excused various potential jurors, the pool was composed of 36 White people and five Black people.<\/p>\n

Evans then used seven peremptory challenges to strike four of the five Black prospective jurors and three of the White ones. He had marked up his juror list by placing a \u201cW\u201d next to the names of the White people and \u201cB\u201d next to the names of Black people, court records show.<\/p>\n

The case turned on whether Pitchford\u2019s attorney took the proper steps to challenge racially biased juror selections. Attorneys for each side can strike jurors without providing a reason, known as a peremptory challenges. But in 1986, the Supreme Court found that such strikes cannot be used to exclude a juror solely on the basis of his or her race. (The prohibition was later extended to gender, as well). The case, Batson v. Kentucky<\/i>, <\/i>set out a multistep test for courts to identify racial discrimination in the selection process.<\/p>\n

Pitchford says his attorneys were denied the opportunity to challenge the selections under Batson. <\/i>The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected that argument, finding that Pitchford\u2019s attorneys waived their right to challenge the selection during the trial, and declined to review it on appeal.<\/p>

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\u201cIn this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down, and the ordinary trial-court procedure for resolving Batson <\/i>claims at step three never occurred \u2014 notwithstanding the repeated efforts of Pitchford\u2019s counsel to pursue and preserve the Batson <\/i>objection,\u201d Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in the majority\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n

The majority sided with a federal court\u2019s 2023 ruling that vacated Pitchford\u2019s conviction and death sentence, and ordered him a new trial.<\/p>\n

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut simply, Mr. Pitchford\u2019s account of a muzzled defense team is hard to square with the record. But even if it were a plausible account, that still would not be enough,\u201d Gorsuch wrote.<\/p>\n

Notably, Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. broke from their conservative colleagues in siding with Pitchford.<\/p>\n

While reading his opinion, Kavanaugh referred back to the details of the crime that led to Pitchford\u2019s conviction.<\/p>\n

Pitchford\u2019s partner, Eric Bullins, was charged with capital murder, but he was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 16 at the time of the killing, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Bullins pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Pitchford, armed with a gun loaded with pellets meant to kill rats, did not shoot Britt, according to his filings. Pitchford says he shot into the floor when Bullins turned the gun on Britt.<\/p>

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This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For two decades, Terry Pitchford has agued his conviction was not valid, pointing to what he says were racially biased selections of the jurors who heard the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court sides with Mississippi man on death row in racial bias case - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1926\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court sides with Mississippi man on death row in racial bias case - 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