Supreme Court rules for Black death row inmate from Mississippi over racial bias in makeup of jury

Source: AP

Updated 10:24 AM EDT, May 28, 2026


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for a Black death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him. By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner.

There was one Black juror in a trial with similarities to that of another Black man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago. Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, had excused four other Black people.

The Supreme Court ruled 40 years ago in Batson v. Kentucky that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors. Pitchford’s case focused on whether his lawyers did enough to object to Judge Joseph Loper’s rulings and whether the state Supreme Court acted reasonably in ruling they had not.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers, because of what Justice Brett Kavanaugh described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” Evans was the prosecutor in that case, and Loper presided over the final two of Flowers’ six trials.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-death-penalty-racial-discrimination-a95ba2fd8163923ecd62e0d8384e89c5