On May 28, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in the Mississippi case of Pitchford v. Cain. The principal issue concerned the validity of the prosecutor’s reasons for striking four black prospective jurors during jury selection.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the majority in relevant part: In 2004, two black teenagers, Terry Pitchford and Eric Bullins, robbed a grocery store near Grenada, Mississippi. During the robbery, Bullins shot and killed the white store owner. Bullins reached a plea agreement and received a 20-year sentence for the homicide. The State charged Pitchford with capital murder and sought the death penalty. During jury selection at Pitchford’s trial, the prosecutor used peremptory strikes against four of the five black potential jurors. As this Court held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, the Equal Protection Clause bars prosecutors from exercising peremptory challenges based on race. In Batson and subsequent cases, the Court has spelled out a three-step process for a trial court to determine whether a prosecutor employed a peremptory challenge based on race. Here, Pitchford’s counsel raised an objection under Batson and made a prima facie showing that the strikes of the four black jurors were based on race (step one). The trial court asked the prosecutor for race-neutral reasons for each strike, and the prosecutor offered reasons (step two). The trial court declared the prosecutor’s stated reasons to be race neutral, but the trial court did not afford defense counsel an opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s race-neutral reasons as pretextual (step three); nor did it make any findings regarding whether the prosecutor’s stated reasons were pretextual. At the close of jury selection, defense counsel sought to raise the Batson issue again, but the trial court twice cut off defense counsel. The empaneled jury, consisting of 11 white jurors and 1 black juror, convicted Pitchford of capital murder and sentenced him to death.
On direct appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that Pitchford had waived his Batson objection by not arguing to the trial court that the prosecutor’s proffered explanations were pretextual. Pitchford later filed a habeas corpus petition in U. S. District Court. Applying the applicable standard to obtain federal habeas relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the District Court concluded that the Mississippi Supreme Court had unreasonably applied Batson and had unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his Batson objection. The District Court explained that no state court had conducted the full three-step Batson inquiry, and that the trial court had “thwarted” the “attempt by Pitchford’s counsel to argue pretext.” The Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court, concluding that the Mississippi Supreme Court’s waiver finding was reasonable.
The Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied the clearly established Batson precedents and unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors. “The job of enforcing Batson rests first and foremost with trial judges.” Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U. S. 284, 302. The bedrock principle that a party ordinarily must raise an objection in the trial court in order to preserve the issue for appeal applies in the Batson context. See Ford v. Georgia, 498 U. S. 411, 423. But here, the Mississippi trial court erroneously omitted Batson’s third step: The trial court did not afford Pitchford’s counsel a sufficient opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s proffered race-neutral reasons for striking the four black jurors and never determined whether the prosecutor’s stated reasons were pretextual. Pitchford’s counsel did not waive the Batson argument. As the U. S. District Court explained, “Pitchford did object to the explanations provided when he raised the issue again.” 706 F. Supp. 3d, at 624. The Mississippi trial court explicitly assured Pitchford’s counsel that the Batson objection was preserved, stating: “I think you already made those, and they are clear in the record.” 1 App. 175. Especially given that specific assurance by the trial court, it was unreasonable for the Mississippi Supreme Court to conclude that Pitchford waived the Batson argument.
The State’s argument that Pitchford preserved his Batson objection but nonetheless somehow waived his Batson pretext argument does not make much sense and is not a reasonable reading of this record. At that key point in the jury-selection process—after the prosecutor had asserted facially race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes— the Batson objection was a Batson pretext argument. Defense counsel’s rebuttal necessarily would include a pretext argument—specifically, that similarly situated white jurors were not challenged by the prosecutor. If allowed to continue, Pitchford could have argued that the prosecutor did not challenge white jurors similarly situated to the challenged black jurors, which is precisely what Pitchford’s post-trial motion later did argue. In this case, 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.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act standard for reviewing claims on federal habeas is deferential to the state court, but deference does not mean abdication, and “deference does not by definition preclude relief.” Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S. 231, 240. In light of the entire record in this case, the Court agrees with the U. S. District Court that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied the clearly established Batson precedents and unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors.
At this point, the defendant has served more than twenty years in prison and the case is more than twenty years old. Given that the co-defendant received a twenty-year plea offer and has since been paroled, it seems unlikely that the State of Mississippi will re-try this case. Had the trial court followed the proper procedures, the prosecutor would have almost certainly been able to proffer race-neutral reasons that would have survived appellate review and the death sentence would have stood. Or, it might have been converted to a life without parole sentence.
Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion. He was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett. In summary, the dissent argued that the majority should have deferred to the lower court rulings since federal courts can only grant habeas relief if a state court’s decision is highly unreasonable and the Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling was reasonable. The dissent noted that the prosecutor provided sufficient race-neutral explanations for striking the prospective jurors: they had prior criminal records in their families and they arrived late to court. The dissent agreed with the state courts that the defense failed to properly challenge the prosecution’s explanations during the at trial and therefore waived the issue for appeal.
