Courts and Death Penalty

During oral argument in Terry Pitchford’s Batson appeal, several justices — including Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito — sharply questioned the state’s waiver argument and the trial judge’s handling of jury selection, with Kavanaugh reading the record in a way that suggested defense counsel did make contemporaneous objections and signaling sympathy for Pitchford. Pitchford’s lawyers explicitly appealed to Kavanaugh’s past scholarship and the Court’s Flowers decisions (the same prosecutor, Doug Evans, prosecuted both cases), an amicus brief from excluded Black jurors echoed claims of racial strikes, and the Court agreed to decide under AEDPA whether Mississippi unreasonably found Pitchford waived his right to rebut the prosecutor’s race‑neutral explanations, likely leaving remedy issues to lower courts.