By Neil T. O’Donnell and Connor Graham

Supreme Court Decision

A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court majority recently found that a Mississippi trial court inappropriately prevented the Defendant from arguing that prosecutors struck potential black jurors on account of their race.¹

Background of the Case

In 2004 Terry Pitchford, 18, robbed a grocery store with Eric Bullins, 16. Over the course of the robbery, Bullins shot and killed the store owner, Reuben Britt, a white man.² It’s disputed whether Pitchford shot Britt.³ Bullins ultimately entered a plea deal for a 20-year sentence. Pitchford elected to have a trial, wherein he was charged for capital murder. The jury panel included 40 black individuals and 84 white individuals. Parties conducted voir dire, allowing them to strike potential jurors from the pool for cause shown, which narrowed the pool to 5 black individuals and 36 white individuals.⁴ The lower court stated that 30 of the black individuals were struck for their views on the death penalty.

Peremptory Strikes and Jury Selection

The next stage of procedure is what gave rise to the U.S. Supreme Court case. Following voir dire, the parties are given an opportunity to exercise peremptory strikes on 31 of the potential jurors. Peremptory strikes allow attorneys to remove potential jurors without any given reason. Pitchford’s attorney struck 12 white individuals, while the State exercised seven: 3 white and 4 black. The jury pool of fourteen (12 jurors and 2 alternatives) consisted of thirteen white individuals and 1 black individual.

The Batson Challenge

The law states that prosecutors cannot exercise peremptory challenges based on race.⁵ The defense must raise a Batson challenge to a prosecutor’s supposed race-based criteria. Batson is conducted in 3 stages: (1) the defendant must a sufficiently detailed objection that certain peremptory challenges raise an inference of exclusion based on race; (2) the prosecution must offer a race-neutral reason that for each of the struck potential jurors (here, the 4 black potential jurors)⁶; and (3) the defense is offered a chance to rebut the prosecution’s reasons as “pretextual”.⁷ Trial courts are given leeway in how to oversee Batson challenges, but Pitchford claims that he was not given a sufficient opportunity to reach Batson stage 3.⁸

Conviction and Appeal

After this procedure, Pitchford was convicted and sentenced with the death penalty. In 2010, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction, finding that Pitchford waived his Batson stage 3 challenge because he did not advance a pretextual argument.

Federal Review and Supreme Court Ruling

The case was re-opened via habeas corpus petition circa-2023. This allowed for the federal court system to get involved. The Northern District Court for Mississippi found that Pitchford properly raised a Batson challenge, but the trial court brusquely pushed the matter aside to move the case along.⁹ The Fifth Circuit overturned the District Court, finding that Pitchford waived the issue. The Supreme Court opinion, authored by Justice Kavanaugh, determined that “things broke down, and the ordinary trial-court procedure for resolving Batson claims at step three never occurred[.]” The Fifth Circuit decision was overturned and the case was remanded.

Prior Related Opinion

Evidently, this is the second time an opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh overturned a murder conviction prosecuted by the relevant district attorney, Doug Evans.¹⁰ The other opinion was written in 2019, where Curtis Flowers was accused of killing four people in 1996.

What This Case Represents

Ultimately, this case represents a slim majority of judges, while favoring lower court discretion for Batson challenges, want to see more of a concrete procedure at the trial court level. Here, the Mississippi trial court’s procedure was too loose for the Supreme Court’s liking. Moving forward, trial courts ought to have more concrete Batson procedures to prevent their final juries from being overturned.