The Supreme Court sided with a death row inmate in Mississippi who challenged the dismissal of four black potential jurors during jury selection for his trial in a sharply divided ruling Thursday.
Terry Pitchford was convicted by a state jury to death for his role in the 2004 killing of the owner of a grocery store during a botched robbery, but he challenged that conviction based on the circumstances of how the group of prospective black jurors was dismissed. The Mississippi Supreme Court tossed out his challenge, finding the trial court properly applied the three-step process to challenge whether a juror was unlawfully dismissed on racial grounds, which was set out by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Batson v. Kentucky.
With its ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the state Supreme Court, ruling 5-4 that the lower court failed to follow the Batson standard and that Pitchford did not waive his right to contest the dismissal of the prospective black jurors for race-neutral reasons.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh penned the majority ruling, finding that the trial court did not give Pitchford’s lawyers an opportunity to rebut the race-neutral reasons given by the prosecution to strike the four prospective black jurors from the jury pool, which should have been afforded to him as the third part of the Batson standard.
When Pitchford’s lawyers raised concerns over the dismissal of four out of the five prospective black jurors by the prosecution, the judge asked for race-neutral reasons for the dismissal. Prosecutors said they dismissed the prospective black jurors because one was 15 minutes late to court, two of the four had brothers who were convicted of violent offenses, and the other was a young, unmarried father, like Pitchford. The trial court judge accepted the prosecution’s rationale without allowing Pitchford’s lawyers to contest those reasons, despite multiple attempts to do so. The jury that ultimately convicted Pitchford consisted of 11 white jurors and one black juror.
“We need not belabor the matter. After a prosecutor asserts race-neutral reasons for a peremptory strike, the defense counsel must at least have an opportunity to argue that the asserted race-neutral reasons were not the actual reasons—that is, the reasons were pretextual,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Then, the trial court can determine whether those asserted reasons were the actual reasons or instead were pretextual.”
“In 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 claims at step three never occurred—notwithstanding the repeated efforts of Pitchford’s counsel to pursue and preserve the Batson objection,” Kavanaugh added.
Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined Kavanaugh’s majority opinion, siding with Pitchford to toss out his conviction. Justice Neil Gorusch wrote the dissent, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett, arguing that Pitchford had failed to met requirements under law for relief for his state court issue in federal court.
“In short, I respectfully dissent because, as I see it, the Court’s opinion errs on the law and the factual record alike. But if the Court’s decision is mistaken, at least its impact is limited,” Gorsuch wrote, noting that the ruling was narrow and only applies to Pitchford.
THE MAJOR SUPREME COURT DECISIONS REMAINING FOR THIS TERM
The Supreme Court is expected to release opinions in the 26 remaining cases it heard arguments in this term over the next month, with all decisions set to be issued by the end of June or the beginning of July. The high court is expected to issue opinions next week.
Once all opinions are released for the current term, the high court will conclude this term and begin its next one in October with oral arguments and decisions in likely dozens of cases. The Supreme Court has already announced 10 cases it will hear next term, and is expected to add to that list in the coming months.