by David Kim

The Supreme Court of the United States held that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), and unreasonably determined that a capital defendant waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for peremptory strikes against four Black prospective jurors. Because the state trial court ended its Batson inquiry at step two, never afforded defense counsel a sufficient opportunity to argue pretext, and explicitly assured counsel that the objection was preserved, the Court concluded that habeas relief was available under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), (2), notwithstanding AEDPA’s deferential standard.

Background

In 2004, Terry Pitchford, then 18 years old, and Eric Bullins, then 16, robbed a grocery store near Grenada, Mississippi. Bullins fired three shots at the store owner, a White man, and killed him. Despite having fired the fatal shots, 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, the prosecutor exercised peremptory strikes against four of the five Black potential jurors. Pitchford’s counsel objected under Batson, and the trial court directed the prosecutor to supply race-neutral reasons for each strike. According to the prosecutor, one juror had returned to court 15 minutes late, two had brothers convicted of violent offenses, and the fourth resembled Pitchford because he was young, unmarried, and a father. As each explanation was offered, the trial court pronounced it race neutral. Upon hearing the final one, the court stated that “[t]he Court finds that to be race neutral as well” and pivoted immediately to the defense’s peremptory strikes. Counsel received no opportunity to rebut the explanations as pretextual, and the court made no findings on pretext.

At the close of jury selection, defense counsel attempted to raise Batson again. The trial court twice cut counsel off, stating, “I think you already made those [arguments], and they are clear in the record,” and finding no Batson violation. The empaneled jury, composed of 11 White jurors and one Black juror, convicted Pitchford of capital murder and sentenced him to death. In a motion for a new trial, Pitchford renewed the argument he had been prevented from making during jury selection, asserting that the prosecutor “deselected black people from the jury panel who had the same familial, living, social or marital circumstances as whites who were not deselected.” The trial court summarily denied the motion.

On direct appeal, a divided Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that Pitchford waived his Batson objection by failing to argue pretext to the trial court. Pitchford later petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. Applying AEDPA, the District Court granted relief, observing that no state court had conducted the full three-step Batson inquiry and that the trial court had “thwarted,” though “likely unintentionally,” the “attempt by Pitchford’s counsel to argue pretext.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the waiver finding was reasonable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Analysis

The Court began its analysis by reviewing the framework governing claims of race-based peremptory strikes. Batson held that the Equal Protection Clause forbids prosecutors from exercising peremptory challenges based on race, and the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions organize the inquiry into three sequential steps. At step one, the defendant must make a prima facie showing that a strike was based on race. The burden then shifts to the prosecutor at step two to articulate a race-neutral reason for the strike. At step three, defense counsel has an opportunity to rebut the proffered reason as pretextual, after which the trial court must decide whether that reason is pretextual “in light of all evidence with a bearing on it.” Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231 (2005); see Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U.S. 284 (2019); Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472 (2008).

Trial judges occupy the central position in this framework. The Court observed that “the job of enforcing Batson rests first and foremost with trial judges.” Flowers. That responsibility went unfulfilled in Pitchford’s case because the trial court “full-stop ended its Batson analysis” at step two, accepting the prosecutor’s explanations as race neutral without permitting rebuttal and without ever determining whether the stated reasons were the actual reasons, the Court concluded.

The Court then discussed the preservation doctrine. A party generally must raise an objection in the trial court to keep the issue alive for appeal, and the Batson context is no exception to that bedrock principle. Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411 (1991). A defendant might explicitly waive a Batson objection or might forfeit one by failing to assert it in a timely fashion. Neither happened here, according to the Court. Counsel lodged the objection during jury selection, renewed it once jury selection ended, and was interrupted twice before any pretext rebuttal could be made.

Waiver and the Trial Court’s Assurance of Preservation

The Court stated that two features of the record rendered the waiver conclusion unreasonable. First, as the District Court explained, “Pitchford did object to the explanations provided when he raised the issue again.” Second, the trial court expressly assured counsel that the objection was preserved when it stated that the arguments were already made and “clear in the record.” The Court reasoned that, especially given that specific assurance, the Mississippi Supreme Court acted unreasonably in concluding that Pitchford waived the Batson argument.

The State sought to defend the judgment below on a narrower theory, contending that Pitchford preserved a Batson objection while nonetheless waiving a Batson pretext argument. However, the Court rejected that distinction, stating that it “slices Batson way too thin.” Once the prosecutor asserted facially race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes, “the Batson objection was a Batson pretext argument,” according to the Court. Defense counsel’s rebuttal necessarily would have included a pretext argument, specifically that similarly situated White jurors were not challenged by the prosecutor. Pitchford’s post-trial motion made that precise comparison, which confirmed for the Court that the State’s reading of the record was unreasonable.

AEDPA Deference and Its Limits

The Court observed that federal habeas relief required Pitchford to clear a high bar. Under § 2254(d), a state prisoner must establish that the state court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”

The Court acknowledged that this standard is deferential to state courts. Klein v. Martin, 607 U.S. 213 (2026); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000). Nevertheless, deference has limits. The Court declared that “deference does not mean abdication” and that “deference does not by definition preclude relief.” Miller-El. Thus, the Court held that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied clearly established Batson precedent and unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for striking four Black prospective jurors, satisfying §§ 2254(d)(1) and (2).

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. See: Pitchford v. Cain, 146 S. Ct. 1345 (2026).  

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