Divided Supreme Court Overturns State Death Row Conviction

According to court records, Evans offered several race neutral explanations for the strikes

One prospective juror had returned late from a lunch break, two had brothers who had been convicted of violent crimes, and another was described as sharing demographic characteristics with Pitchford, including being young, unmarried, and a parent.

Pitchford’s attorneys challenged the strikes under the Supreme Court’s Batson framework.

Under that process, the defense first raises an inference of discrimination, the prosecutor then provides race neutral explanations, and the defense is allowed to argue that those explanations are merely a pretext for unlawful discrimination

The central issue in the case was not necessarily the reasons Evans offered, but whether the trial court properly completed the Batson process. According to a majority of Supreme Court justices, the judge overseeing the trial accepted the prosecutor’s explanations and moved forward without giving the defense a meaningful opportunity to challenge them before the jury was finalized.

The jury that ultimately convicted Pitchford consisted of 11 White jurors and one Black juror.