Pitchford v. Cain

608 U. S. 391 (2026) · 5/28/26

In Pitchford’s direct appeal of a capital murder sentence, the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied the clearly established precedents of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, to determine that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors.

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 five black potential jurors. As this Court held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, the Equal Protection Clause bars prosecutors from exercising…

Held: The Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied the clearly established Batson precedents and unreasonably determined that Pitch- ford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor's asserted race- neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors. Pp. 398–401. (a) “[T]he job of enforcing Batson rests first 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.…