Conviction thrown out

A 5-4 ruling threw out Terry Pitchford’s Mississippi conviction after arguments that prosecutors excluded Black jurors during jury selection.

1. Frame 1Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Terry Pitchford’s Mississippi appeal, throwing out his conviction over jury-selection bias claims.
2. Frame 2Pitchford was 18 when convicted in a 2004 grocery-store killing; the teen who fired the shots was under 18.
3. Frame 3At trial, prosecutors removed four of five Black prospective jurors; the final panel had one Black juror.
4. Frame 4The majority said Pitchford’s lawyer lacked a fair chance to challenge the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations.
5. Frame 5The ruling revives a federal judge’s order invalidating the conviction and sends the case back into court.
6. Frame 6Next pressure point: Mississippi must decide how to proceed under Batson’s ban on race-based jury strikes.