Supreme court hearing Mississippi death penalty case over alleged racial jury bias

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on whether a Mississippi prosecutor's removal of nearly all Black jurors in Terry Pitchford's 2006 capital murder trial violated his constitutional rights. Doug Evans, now retired, struck all but one Black person from the jury that convicted Pitchford, a practice that raises longstanding legal concerns about racial discrimination in jury selection under the landmark Batson v. Kentucky precedent. Both the trial judge and Mississippi's supreme court previously upheld the conviction despite the stark racial disparity in the juror strikes. The case tests how aggressively federal courts will scrutinize prosecutors' peremptory challenges and whether the cumulative pattern of removing Black jurors—rather than individual strikes—should trigger heightened constitutional review. A ruling could reshape how courts evaluate jury selection in high-stakes criminal cases nationwide.