Death Penalty Conviction Overturned for Mississippi Man
Greenville, Miss. — A federal judge has overturned the death penalty conviction of a Mississippi man, finding a trial judge didn't give the man's lawyer enough chance to argue that the prosecution was dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons.
U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills ruled Tuesday that the state of Mississippi must give Terry Pitchford a new trial on capital murder charges.
Mills wrote that his ruling is partially motivated by what he called former District Attorney Doug Evans' history of discriminating against Black jurors.
A spokesperson for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said Sunday that the state intends to appeal. Online prison records show Pitchford remained on death row Sunday at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Mills ordered the state to retry the 37-year-old man within six months, and said he must be released from custody if he is not retried by then.
A murder charge has been brought against Pitchford in connection with the 2004 robbery of Crossroads Grocery in northern Mississippi. Pitchford and his friend, Eric Bullins, went to the store with the intention of robbing it. Bullins shot and killed store owner Reuben Britt, while Pitchford claimed to have fired shots into the floor. Police discovered Britt's gun in a car at Pitchford's residence. Pitchford, who was 18 at the time, confessed to his involvement and revealed that he had attempted to rob the store 10 days prior.
However, Mills argued that the jury selection process for the 2006 trial was flawed because the judge did not allow Pitchford's defense lawyer sufficient opportunity to challenge the state's decision to exclude Black jurors. In order to prove improper exclusion, a defendant must demonstrate that discriminatory intent influenced the strikes. In Pitchford's case, the original jury pool consisted of 61 white and 35 Black members. This number was reduced to a final pool of 36 white and 5 Black members, as many Black jurors objected to sentencing Pitchford to death. Additionally, four more Black jurors were struck by prosecutors, leaving only one Black person on the final jury.
While prosecutors provided race-neutral reasons for striking the Black jurors, Mills determined that the defense was not given an adequate opportunity to challenge these justifications. "This court cannot ignore the notion that Pitchford was seemingly given no chance to rebut the state's explanations and prove purposeful discrimination," Mills stated.
Mississippi Supreme Court Overturns Conviction Due to Racial Bias in Jury Selection
On appeal, Pitchford's lawyers argued that some of the reasons for rejecting the jurors were flimsy and that the state didn't make similar objections to white jurors with similar issues.
Mills also wrote that his decision was influenced by the prosecution of another Black man by Evans, who is white. Curtis Flowers was tried six times in the shooting deaths of four people. The U.S. Supreme Court found Evans had improperly excluded Black people from Flowers' juries, overturning the man's conviction and death sentence.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh called it a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals."
Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in September 2020, after Flowers was released from custody and Evans turned the case over to the state attorney general.
Mills wrote that, on its own, the Flowers case doesn't prove anything. But he said that the Mississippi Supreme Court should have examined that history in considering Pitchford's appeal.
"The court merely believes that it should have been included in a 'totality of the circumstances' analysis of the issue," Mills wrote.
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press)
