He was 20 when he was sentenced to death. Now he hopes US Supreme Court will hear his case
A man on Mississippi's death row is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take a look at his case while he continues seeking other federal relief.
Terry Pitchford, 39, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2006 for the death of a man in a Grenada County grocery store during an armed robbery in 2004.
In 2023, Terry Pitchford's conviction and death sentence were set aside and a new trial was ordered by a federal district court judge.
The state appealed and the conviction and sentence were reinstated after a ruling in favor of the state by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mississippi: Man whose death sentence was overturned in 2023 is now facing death again. Here's why
Now Pitchford is hoping the nation's highest court will review his case while he also continues to work on other aspects of the case in the Mississippi Northern District of U.S. District Court.
The state has until July 3 to file a brief opposing Pitchford's petition.
The Supreme Court may consider Pitchford's petition at the opening conference of the October term.
Pitchford is asking the Supreme Court to review his Batson claim, which refers to jury selection in which race, ethnicity or gender played a role in excluding potential jurors.
During jury selection at Pitchford's trial, then-District Attorney Doug Evans "used four of his allotted 12 peremptory strikes to remove four of the five Black venirepersons provisionally seated in the jury's empaneling," court records show.
Evans was accused of doing the same during the prosecution of Curtis Flowers, who stood trial six times for the murders of four people at a furniture store in Winona.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 overturned Flowers' conviction for the last time, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh "citing a 'relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals,'" according to an earlier story.
In Pitchford's case, during his appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court said Pitchford should have raised objections at his initial trial if he wanted to contest the jury selection.
The court's decision in favor of the state was not unanimous. Two justices disagreed with the ruling, saying "the record showed that D.A. Evans used peremptory strikes in an intentionally racially discriminatory manner," according to court documents.
The federal court agreed with the dissenters and set aside Pitchford's conviction and ordered a new trial.
The federal appellate court looked at the case and determined the Mississippi Supreme Court did not err when it considered the Batson claim and reinstated Pitchford's conviction and sentence.
Now it will be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in, if it decides to review the case.
Lici Beveridge is a reporter for the Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger. Contact her at lbeveridge@gannett.com. Follow her on X @licibev or Facebook at facebook.com/licibeveridge.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi death row inmate asks SCOTUS for help
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Utah judge rules a convicted killer with dementia is competent to be executed
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A convicted killer in Utah who developed dementia while on death row for 37 years is competent enough to be executed, a state judge ruled late Friday. Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, was sentenced to die in 1988 for killing Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker. Despite his recent cognitive decline, Menzies 'consistently and rationally understands" what is happening and why he is facing execution, Judge Matthew Bates wrote in a court order. 'Menzies has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that his understanding of his specific crime and punishment has fluctuated or declined in a way that offends the Eighth Amendment,' which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, Bates said. Menzies had previously selected a firing squad as his method of execution. He would become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977. The Utah Attorney General's Office is expected to file a death warrant soon. Menzies' lawyers, who had argued his dementia was so severe that he could not understand why he was being put to death, said they plan to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. 'Ralph Menzies is a severely brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound, 67-year-old man with dementia and significant memory problems,' his attorney, Lindsey Layer, said in a statement. 'It is deeply troubling that Utah plans to remove Mr. Menzies from his wheelchair and oxygen tank to strap him into an execution chair and shoot him to death.' The U.S. Supreme Court has spared others prisoners with dementia from execution, including an Alabama man in 2019 who had killed a police officer. Over nearly four decades, attorneys for Menzies filed multiple appeals that delayed his death sentence, which had been scheduled at least twice before it was pushed back. Hunsaker, a 26-year-old married mother of three, was abducted by Menzies from the convenience store where she worked. She was later found strangled and her throat cut at a picnic area in the Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah. Menzies had Hunsaker's wallet and several other belongings when he was jailed on unrelated matters. He was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes. Matt Hunsaker, who was 10 years old when his mother was killed, said Friday that the family was overwhelmed with emotion to know that justice would finally be served.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court leaves in place District of Columbia's gun restriction on large magazines
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a longstanding gun restriction in the District of Columbia that bans magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, opting once again to avoid taking up a new gun rights case. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority that generally favors gun rights, turned away a challenge to the Washington, D.C., law just a few days after rejecting an appeal over a similar law in Rhode Island. Then, the court also left in place Maryland's ban on assault-style weapons including the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Follow live politics coverage here The court expanded gun rights in a major 2022 ruling that found for the first time that the right to bear arms under the Constitution's Second Amendment extends outside the home. But the court has since frustrated gun owners by declining to take up cases that would expand upon that ruling. The District of Columbia has long been a legal battleground over gun restrictions. The Supreme Court's landmark 2008 ruling that for the first time found that people have an individual right to bear arms in self defense in their homes arose from a challenge to a D.C. law. In the latest case, four gun owners challenged the restriction on large-capacity magazines that was enacted in the aftermath of the 2008 Supreme Court ruling, saying the restriction is unlawful under the later 2022 decision. Both a federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the law. The appeals court, in a 2-1 vote, said in a ruling last year that although large-capacity magazines are arms under the Second Amendment and have been in common use for years, they can be regulated because they are "particularly dangerous." Last summer, the Supreme Court sidestepped multiple gun-related disputes soon after it issued a ruling that upheld a federal law that prohibits people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. In other action on pending appeals Friday, the court decided against taking up a significant election case involving mail-in ballots in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that pitted Republicans against Democrats. The decision leaves intact a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that said voters who send mail-in ballots that are flagged as defective can then file a separate provision in-person ballot. The Republican National Committee was seeking to overturn the 2024 state court decision, while the Democratic National Committee was defending it. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Three-judge federal panel upholds Arkansas congressional redistricting
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A three-judge panel for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas upheld Arkansas congressional redistricting on Friday. The ruling on a summary judgment ends the lawsuit filed in May 2023 by the Christian Ministerial Alliance against then-Secretary of State John Thurston. The suit alleged racial discrimination in redrawing the second district. Three-judge panel yet to make decision in Arkansas redistricting lawsuit A significant part of the complaint was that, in the 2021 redistricting, Pulaski County was divided into three districts, rather than being in one district as it had been previously. The plaintiffs argued that by fragmenting a Black community, the redistricting was racial discrimination. The court's Friday order states, 'the evidence does not back up their claims of racial discrimination' and grants summary judgment to Thurston. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin praised the court's decision. 'The District Court's ruling is consistent with the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, in which the high court wrote that a party must first disentangle race and politics if it wishes to prove racial motivation rather than partisanship,' Griffin said, adding, 'It is critical that our electorate maintain faith in our election process, and this ruling confirms that our congressional districts are legal and proper.' Federal court rules for Arkansas House redistricting case to go forward; AG, NAACP react A three-judge panel heard the case due to federal law about redistricting cases. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
