Pitchford, a Black man on Mississippi’s death row, is seeking Supreme Court review of how lower courts handled his claim that prosecutors used race to influence who served on the jury that convicted him. The justices heard arguments on Tuesday on whether Pitchford’s lawyers did enough during jury selection to preserve his objections and on whether the Mississippi Supreme Court acted reasonably in rejecting his challenge.
At issue is whether the process used in Pitchford’s trial complied with the standards set by the Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, which bars prosecutors from removing jurors because of race and requires trial courts to evaluate discrimination claims and the stated, race-neutral reasons offered by prosecutors. AP reported that the justices focused on how that evaluation was conducted when Pitchford’s case reached court.
Pitchford’s jury, which sentenced him to death for his role in the killing of grocery store owner Reuben Britt in northern Mississippi, had one Black juror. AP reported that Doug Evans, now retired and identified in the case materials as a former prosecutor who had previously dismissed Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, excused four other Black people from the jury.
During the arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh told the court he thought one of Pitchford’s lawyers “spoke up” when objections were raised. Reading from the trial transcript, Kavanaugh said, “She’s trying to make the objections right there.”
There was also broad agreement among the justices, according to AP, that neither the judge nor the lawyers performed especially well during jury selection in Pitchford’s case. Justice Samuel Alito said, “This is the most timid and reticent defense counsel that I have ever encountered,” and he separately criticized Judge Joseph Loper’s handling, saying the judge did not address the discrimination issue in the way it should have been handled.
AP reported that Alito faulted Loper for accepting Evans’ explanations and moving on without analyzing whether race was the reason. In the 2019 case of Curtis Flowers, the Supreme Court overturned Flowers’ death sentence and conviction, describing what Kavanaugh characterized as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” Kavanaugh and other justices returned to that precedent during Tuesday’s discussion.
Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart sought to distinguish Pitchford’s case from Flowers’. Stewart told the court, “In Flowers versus Mississippi, this Court faced an extraordinary case and ruled against the state,” adding that Pitchford’s case was “also extraordinary but in a very different way that requires a very different result.”
The Supreme Court could rule for Pitchford while still leaving for lower courts the question of whether the conviction should be overturned, AP said. The appeal has been working its way through the legal system for two decades, since the original trial and sentencing.
AP reported that Pitchford, who is now 40, was 18 when he and a friend decided to rob the Crossroads Grocery outside Grenada in northern Mississippi. AP said the friend shot Britt three times, fatally wounding him, and that the friend was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18, while Pitchford was tried for capital murder and sentenced to death.
In 2023, AP reported that U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills overturned Pitchford’s conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford’s lawyers enough opportunity to argue that prosecutors improperly dismissed Black jurors. AP said Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases, and that a unanimous panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed Mills’ ruling.
During Tuesday’s exchange, AP reported that Kavanaugh praised Mills’ handling of the case, saying, “Mills is a very experienced district judge. He had been a former Mississippi Supreme Court justice. He knows what he’s doing. He read the record entirely differently than you did.”