Terry Pitchford was 18 when he and a friend went to rob the Crossroads Grocery outside Grenada, Mississippi, in 2004; the friend shot owner Reuben Britt three times, fatally wounding him. The friend was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18, and the case has been making its way through the court system for 20 years. In Pitchford's trial, Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor, knocked all but one Black person off the jury, with the prosecution excusing four of the five remaining Black people in the jury pool, and defense lawyers objected.
Judge Joseph Loper allowed the jury selection to happen, accepting all four explanations and moving on without analysis. S. District Judge Michael P.
Mills overturned Pitchford's conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford's lawyers enough chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors, a ruling partially motivated by Evans' actions in prior cases. S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Mills' ruling, and the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Pitchford's conviction.
The Supreme Court in December agreed to hear Pitchford's appeal relating to a claim of racial discrimination. Seven years ago, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers because of a relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals, with seven of the current nine justices on the court during that case. The Supreme Court has in recent years taken a dim view of defendants' claims in capital cases, especially in last-minute efforts to stave off execution, as seen last week when it turned away the appeal of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed over the dissent of three liberal justices.
The specific arguments to be presented in Tuesday's hearing and how the court's recent trend will affect the outcome remain unclear.