Sotomayor Blasts Mississippi Rule After Court Declines Death‑Row Appeal

Her sharp concurrence says the state’s requirement that defendants show a different trial outcome to prove prejudice likely conflicts with federal law and should be resolved by the justices.

Overview

The Supreme Court refused to hear Tony Terrell Clark’s challenge to his 2014 conviction and death sentence but left intact a separate, written rebuke from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Sotomayor wrote that Mississippi’s test—demanding proof that a properly litigated Batson challenge would have changed the trial result—is “almost certainly wrong” and places an unfair burden on defendants.
Her statement noted the trial record showed prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors at more than five times the rate of white jurors and that the jury that convicted Clark contained one Black member and eleven white members.
Sotomayor said she concurred in the denial because Clark had not pressed the separate Strickland deficiency point needed to win relief, but she urged the Court to resolve the Batson‑Strickland question in a future case.
The opinion comes after a recent 5–4 decision for another Mississippi prisoner on Batson issues and signals the Court remains a key venue for future fights over racial jury strikes and their role in death‑penalty cases.