Overview
- The U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday, voted 5-4 to vacate Terry Pitchford’s 2006 conviction and death sentence and sent the case back to lower courts for further proceedings.
- Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the trial judge skipped Batson’s required third step by not giving defense counsel a real chance to show the prosecution’s stated race‑neutral reasons were pretextual.
- At Pitchford’s trial the prosecutor, former District Attorney Doug Evans, struck four of five Black prospective jurors, leaving a jury with one Black member in a county that was about 40% Black at the time.
- The Court framed its decision within AEDPA’s deferential standard but said deference is not abdication, so federal review can correct unreasonable state‑court applications of Batson; the ruling allows the state to retry Pitchford or pursue other relief.
- The opinion echoes the Court’s earlier Flowers decision involving the same prosecutor and highlights trial judges’ central role in policing racial bias in jury selection while leaving broader AEDPA and Batson doctrine largely intact.