LDF Applauds Supreme Court Ruling that Black Man Was Improperly Denied a Fair Jury Selection Process in Death Penalty Case

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Pitchford v. Cain, a case in which Terry Pitchford, a Black man, was sentenced to death. The Court ruled that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably denied Mr. Pitchford’s jury discrimination objection and unreasonably found that Mr. Pitchford waived his objection that there was racial bias in the jury selection process.

In a county that is 40% Black, only a single Black juror was seated on Mr. Pitchford’s jury. Four prospective Black jurors were struck by a District Attorney who had a historic pattern of racial discrimination. Mr. Pitchford objected to the prosecution’s removal of the Black jurors, arguing that the strikes violated Batson v. Kentucky, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection. But the presiding judge stopped Mr. Pitchford’s counsel from making the objection and overruled it simply because the prosecutor said that he had removed the jurors for nonracial reasons.

Today’s ruling reverses those appellate decisions and recognizes that Batson requires trial judges to do more than simply accept a prosecutor’s claims that they did not discriminate. A trial judge must allow defense counsel to explain why the prosecutor’s strikes were really discriminatory and then must make its own decision about whether the prosecutor acted with a discriminatory purpose.

The case now returns to a lower court for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s decision.

“Terry Pitchford faced unconscionable racial bias and was denied a trial by a jury of his peers, only to be sentenced to death in a stunning act of injustice,” said Christopher Kemmitt, Director of Litigation at the Legal Defense Fund. “It has been 40 years since Batson v. Kentucky was handed down to address systemic racial bias. The promise of Batson is still unfulfilled, but today’s decision is a critical reaffirmation of the need to root out racial discrimination from our jury selection process. We are grateful that Mr. Pitchford was spared death and that the Court rightfully ruled in his favor.”

In February, LDF filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Pitchford, arguing that his case was infected by racial bias and outlining how discrimination in jury selection deprives defendants of equal justice and denies jurors their right to serve. The brief also explains how the Mississippi Supreme Court undermined the U.S. Supreme Court’s efforts to address the systemic exclusion of Black jurors.   

 Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.