WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court is once again confronting allegations of racial discrimination in jury selection by former Mississippi District Attorney Doug Evans, whose conduct the Court condemned in Flowers v. Mississippi (2019). The justices reviewed Pitchford v. Cain during their annual long conference and relisted the case for further consideration on Oct. 10, 2025.
According to the release, Pitchford reached the high court after a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal district judge in Oxford’s order of a new trial due to the constitutional violation infecting Terry Pitchford’s 2006 conviction and death sentence. The federal court had found that Evans excluded four Black prospective jurors “for no credible reason other than their race.”
Evans gained national attention for his role in Flowers v. Mississippi, where the Supreme Court found that he violated the Constitution by striking Black jurors across six trials. As the release explains, “Justice Kavanaugh’s majority opinion observed that over the span of those six trials, Evans used elective, or ‘peremptory,’ jury strikes to eliminate 41 of the 42 Black prospective jurors.” Flowers’s indictment was later dismissed with prejudice in 2020.
The same trial judge who presided over Flowers’s sixth trial, the Honorable Joseph Loper, also oversaw Pitchford’s case. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi determined that Judge Loper “failed to adhere to the Batson three-step process” meant to safeguard against racial discrimination during jury selection. The State of Mississippi appealed, and in January 2025, “the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision, reinstating Pitchford’s death sentence,” despite Supreme Court precedent requiring reversal when racial bias is evident.
Several groups have urged the Supreme Court to review the case. According to the release, “three Black prospective jurors whom Evans excluded from jury service in Pitchford’s trial,” the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, and “various former and current prosecutors and judges” have filed amicus briefs supporting Pitchford.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot also stated that “it is vital for prosecutors, state courts, and federal courts to safeguard the Equal Protection rights of the criminal defendant and the citizenry presenting themselves for jury service to be free from racial discrimination.”
Furthermore, Joe Perkovich, one of Pitchford’s attorneys, argued that the Fifth Circuit disregarded the prosecutor’s extensive history of bias. “The Fifth Circuit’s studied avoidance of this prosecutor’s garish record of discrimination calls for review,” Perkovich said. “The Mississippi federal district court was right to order a new trial, and the Supreme Court should act now for the integrity of the Nation’s courts.”
The Court’s eventual decision will determine whether Pitchford’s death sentence stands and whether the precedent set in Flowers v. Mississippi continues to guide the justice system in confronting racial discrimination in jury selection.
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