U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Mississippi Death Penalty Case Alleging Race Based Jury Discrimination

The U.S Supreme Court announced on December 15, 2025, that it will hear the appeal of Mississippi death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Terry Pitchford, who has argued his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were vio­lat­ed because of race dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion. Mr. Pitchford was sen­tenced to death near­ly two decades ago for his role in the shoot­ing death of Reuben Britt.

At the cen­ter of Mr. Pitchford’s case is Doug Evans, a Mississippi dis­trict attor­ney whose con­duct has drawn repeat­ed scruti­ny. DA Evans was the same pros­e­cu­tor exco­ri­at­ed by the Supreme Court in 2019 for repeat­ed­ly and ille­gal­ly strik­ing Black jurors in the pros­e­cu­tion of Curtis Flowers.¹ During Mr. Pitchford’s 2006 tri­al, DA Evans sim­i­lar­ly used his peremp­to­ry chal­lenges to remove four poten­tial jurors — all of whom were Black — over the objec­tions of Mr. Pitchford’s defense attor­neys. A jury pool of 126 peo­ple was ini­tial­ly sum­moned (40 Black, 84 white, one Hispanic, and one unknown). The tri­al judge dis­missed jurors for statu­to­ry caus­es and rea­sons unre­lat­ed to the case, leav­ing 96 poten­tial jurors (35 Black and 61 white). Following voir dire, the judge dis­missed anoth­er 52 jurors for cause, includ­ing 30 Black jurors for their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, leav­ing a pool of five Black jurors and 36 white jurors. DA Evans used his peremp­to­ry strikes to exclude four Black jurors for rea­sons ulti­mate­ly deemed ​“race-neu­tral” by the trial judge.

The defense team argued these strikes vio­lat­ed the Supreme Court’s land­mark 1986 deci­sion in Batson v. Kentucky, which pro­hibits the use of peremp­to­ry strikes based on race. The tri­al judge reject­ed defense counsel’s argu­ment, and the Mississippi Supreme Court lat­er upheld both Mr. Pitchford’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The state’s high­est court ruled that Mr. Pitchford waived his Batson claim by fail­ing to offer argu­ments rebut­ting the prosecutor’s stat­ed ​“race-neu­tral” expla­na­tions for strik­ing the four Black jurors.

Mr. Pitchford sought relief on his Batson claim in fed­er­al court and in 2023, U.S. District Judge Michael Mills ruled in his favor, grant­i­ng him relief and order­ing Mississippi to either retry him with­in 180 days or release him. Judge Mills found that the orig­i­nal tri­al judge failed to thor­ough­ly eval­u­ate whether the jurors were struck for ille­gal racial rea­sons. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sub­se­quent­ly reversed the dis­trict court’s deci­sion. Writing on behalf of the Fifth Circuit, Judge Kyle Duncan held that even if the Mississippi Supreme Court had erred in its waiv­er analy­sis, that would not enti­tle Mr. Pitchford to fed­er­al relief under the stan­dards set by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).

The U.S. Supreme Court will specif­i­cal­ly con­sid­er whether the Mississippi Supreme Court’s deter­mi­na­tion that Mr. Pitchford waived his right to rebut the prosecutor’s ​“race-neu­tral” expla­na­tions for strik­ing Black jurors was an ​“unrea­son­able appli­ca­tion of estab­lished fed­er­al law” under AEDPA. After con­sid­er­ing Mr. Pitchford’s peti­tion at eight con­sec­u­tive con­fer­ences, an unusu­al­ly lengthy delib­er­a­tion peri­od, the jus­tices agreed to con­sid­er his case. Oral argu­ments are expect­ed in March or April 2026, with a deci­sion expect­ed by summer 2026.