Terry Pitchford, Petitioner v. Burl Cain, Commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections (24-7351)
- Term
- OT 2025
- Argued
- 2026-03-31
- Decided
- 2026-05-28
- Vote
- 5-4 for Pitchford
- Opinion
- Justice Kavanaugh
- Majority
- Kavanaugh, Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson
- Dissent
- Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, Barrett
The case in brief
Facts
In 2004, two Black teenagers, Terry Pitchford and Eric Bullins, robbed a grocery store near Grenada, Mississippi, and Bullins shot and killed the white store owner. Bullins took a plea deal for a 20-year sentence, while the State charged Pitchford with capital murder and sought the death penalty. During jury selection, the prosecutor removed Black potential jurors, and the judge accepted the prosecutor's stated reasons as race neutral without letting the defense argue that those reasons were a cover (a "pretext") for race discrimination. After a jury of 11 white jurors and 1 Black juror convicted Pitchford and sentenced him to death, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that he had waived (given up) his race-discrimination claim by not making the pretext argument at trial. A federal district court granted Pitchford relief, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Question
Under the strict federal law that limits when federal courts can overturn state convictions (known as AEDPA), was the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonable in ruling that Pitchford gave up his argument that the prosecutor's race-neutral reasons for striking Black jurors were a cover for discrimination?
Conclusion
Pitchford won in a 5-4 decision, with Justice Kavanaugh writing for the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. The Court held that the Mississippi Supreme Court acted unreasonably, because the trial judge skipped the required third step of the jury-bias review, cut off defense counsel, and assured counsel the objection was already preserved. The Court said that even under the deferential AEDPA standard, Pitchford could get relief, and it reversed the Fifth Circuit and sent the case back. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett, dissented, arguing that it was reasonable to read the record as showing defense counsel meant to preserve only a statistical argument, not a pretext argument.
Opinion of the Court
Authored by Justice Kavanaugh (6,843 words total).
Volume 608 U. S. Part 2 Pages 391–410
THE SUPREME COURT May 28, 2026
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certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fth circuit No. 24–7351. Argued March 31, 2026—Decided May 28, 2026 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 fve 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 fndings 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 fled 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.”
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706 F. Supp. 3d 614, 624. The Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court, concluding that the Mississippi Supreme Court's waiver fnding was reasonable. Held: 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 raceneutral reasons for the peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors. Pp. 398–401. (a) “[T]he job of enforcing Batson rests frst 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 suffcient 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 specifc 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—specifcally, 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. Pp. 398–401. (b) The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act standard for reviewing claims on federal habeas is deferential to the state court, but
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