Court to hear case on racial discrimination in jury selection

The Supreme Court on Monday morning agreed to take up the case of a Mississippi man who contends that he was sentenced to death in violation of the Constitution’s ban on racial discrimination in jury selection. Pitchford v. Cain is the only case from the justices’ Dec. 12 conference in which they’ve granted review so far. The court did not act on several high-profile petitions that it considered last Friday, including challenges to state laws banning assault rifles and large-capacity magazines.

Nearly two decades ago, Terry Pitchford was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the shooting death of a shopkeeper. At his 2006 trial, the local district attorney, Doug Evans – whose conduct was at the center of another jury discrimination case six years ago – eliminated four potential jury members, all of whom were Black, over the objections of Pitchford’s lawyers. They contended that the strikes violated the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, holding that the use of peremptory challenges (that is, challenges for any reason) to remove potential jurors based on race violates the Constitution. The state trial judge rejected their argument.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Pitchford’s conviction and sentence. It reasoned that Pitchford had forfeited his right to make his Batson claim because he had not offered any arguments to rebut the race-neutral explanations that the prosecutor had offered for his strikes of the four potential Black jurors.

When Pitchford went to federal court in Mississippi to seek post-conviction relief, U.S. District Judge Michael Mills granted that relief and ordered the state to either retry him within 180 days or release him.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed. In its view, Mills had rested his determination on his conclusion that the “the Mississippi Supreme Court erred in its waiver analysis because Pitchford sufficiently objected at the bench conference. But even assuming the district court was correct,” Judge Kyle Duncan wrote, “that would not entitle Pitchford to habeas relief” because the standard under the federal law governing post-conviction claims is whether the state supreme court’s decision was “an ‘objectively unreasonable’ application of a Supreme Court ‘holding[].’”

Pitchford came to the Supreme Court in May, asking the justices to weigh in. After considering his petition for review at eight consecutive conferences, the court agreed to do so. They framed the question before them as whether, under the federal law governing post-conviction claims for relief, the Mississippi Supreme Court’s determination that Pitchford had waived his right to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for exercising peremptory strikes against four Black jurors was unreasonable.

The case will likely be argued in March or April, with a decision to follow by late June or early July.

Additionally, on Monday morning the court denied review in Scullark v. Iowa, in which an Iowa man who was arrested when police came to investigate a domestic violence call had asked the justices to rule on the thorny issue of how broadly police officers can search when they make an arrest. Patrick Scullark, Jr., removed a fanny pack from around his waist and handed it to a companion. A police officer searched the fanny pack, in which he found methamphetamine. Scullark contended that the search violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment, but the justices on Monday declined to take up his appeal.

And in Kane v. City of New York, the court turned down a request to intervene in a challenge to the scope of religious exemptions from New York City’s vaccine mandate for educators. The case was brought by staff whose opposition to the mandate stems from their personal religious beliefs, rather than those of the religious organizations to which they belong; they argued that the mandate scheme discriminates on the basis of religion.

The justices’ next regularly scheduled conference will take place on Friday, Jan. 9.