Pitchford appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court and later sought relief in the federal district court in Mississippi.
The federal court ruled in his favor and overturned the conviction, finding that the trial judge had been “seemingly eager to proceed to the case itself, quickly deemed the reasons as race-neutral and moved on.”
However, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court and put Pitchford back on death row.
Afterward, the Supreme Court agreed to take the case.
“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down, and the ordinary trial-court procedure for resolving Batson claims at step three never occurred, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of Pitchford’s counsel to pursue and preserve the Batson objection,” Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.
