The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Terry Pitchford, a Black death row inmate from Mississippi who argued that racial discrimination distorted the jury that convicted him. The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, faulted a selection process that produced a panel of 11 white jurors and a single Black juror, and left the lower courts to determine whether Pitchford’s conviction survives new scrutiny.
The ruling draws a direct comparison to the court’s 2019 decision in Flowers v. Mississippi, which threw out the conviction of Curtis Flowers — another Black Mississippi death row inmate — after finding that District Attorney Doug Evans had systematically excluded Black jurors across six trials. Pitchford was prosecuted in the same judicial district, with the same prosecutor’s office handling the case, according to court records. In both cases, the Supreme Court highlighted how the striking of potential Black jurors produced juries that were overwhelmingly white, deepening concerns about racial bias in capital sentencing in the state.
“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,” Kavanaugh wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — the court’s three liberal members — forming a 5-4 majority.
The dissent, led by Justice Neil Gorsuch, argued that the state should still have the opportunity to argue that Pitchford’s conviction remains valid. Gorsuch was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Pitchford was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner. Thursday’s ruling does not automatically overturn his conviction, but it requires the lower courts to re-examine his claims of discrimination in jury selection. If those claims succeed, the conviction would be vacated and the state could either retry Pitchford or negotiate a lesser sentence.