Mississippi jury for capital murder trial includes only one Black juror

More than 120 people gathered at the Grenada County Courthouse on Feb. 6, 2006, for jury selection in the capital murder trial of Terry Pitchford, a 20-year-old Black man accused of killing a white convenience store owner, according to court records and interviews.

During the selection process, prosecutors and defense attorneys used peremptory challenges to dismiss prospective jurors. A Black woman, Linda Lee, was struck after being 15 minutes late and reportedly having mental health issues, according to District Attorney Doug Evans. Three other Black jurors were also dismissed, leaving only one Black person on the jury, despite the county’s roughly 37% Black population.

Defense attorney Alison Steiner objected, citing a Batson v. Kentucky challenge, which prohibits racial discrimination in jury strikes. Judge Joseph Loper quickly accepted Evans’ reasons for striking the Black jurors without requiring rebuttal, a move Steiner later described as dismissive of the race-neutrality requirement.

Steiner noted the jury was disproportionately white; she pointed out that only one Black juror remained when the trial began. The trial lasted about two days. Jurors convicted Pitchford of murder and sentenced him to death. Prosecutors argued he was the ringleader of the 2004 killing of Reuben Britt, a convenience store owner in Grenada County.

Pitchford, then 18, and co-defendant Eric Bullin, 16, were accused of shooting Britt during a robbery. Prosecutors presented evidence including confessions and firearm evidence. Bullin, who was 16 at the time, later received a 20-year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to killing another man in 2005. He was not eligible for the death penalty due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting execution of minors.

In 2007, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a previous case involving District Attorney Evans, citing racial discrimination in jury selection, notably in the case of Curtis Flowers. The court found Evans exercised all his strikes on Black jurors in Flowers’ case, leading to a series of trials that ultimately resulted in multiple mistrials and a death sentence. An investigation by the podcast “In The Dark” highlighted patterns of racial bias in Evans’ prosecutorial record, revealing that Black jurors were struck at a much higher rate than white jurors in the district.

Source: Original Article