Defying the predictions of its left-wing critics, the US Supreme Court last week overturned the conviction and death sentence of a black man who’s spent 20 years on Mississippi’s death row.
In doing so, the justices nudged the nation another step closer toward color-blind justice.
In 2005 Terry Pitchford and Eric Bullins, then 18 and 16, robbed a store in Grenada County, Miss.
Bullins fired the shots that killed the shopkeeper; Pitchford, who was carrying only a pellet gun, shot it into the floor.
But Bullins took a plea deal, and because of his youth got 20 years in jail — while Pitchford stood trial and was condemned to death.
The Supreme Court ruled Pitchford was denied his right to a fair trial, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the 5-4 majority, explained why: During jury selection, the judge let the prosecutor exclude four black jurors without pressing him for credible, race-neutral reasons, or allowing the defense to do so.
Striking jurors on the basis of race is unconstitutional.
In the past three years, this court has struck down race-based college admissions, race-based hiring and promotion, and race-based legislative districts.
Now it’s stood firm against considering race to select a jury.
And don’t be misled by the 5-4 vote: The justices agreed unanimously that race-based jury selection is wrong.
The four dissenters — Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — questioned whether the trial record demonstrated a serious enough error to actually overturn Pitchford’s conviction.
But outrage prevailed.
Both Doug Evans, the prosecutor accused of stacking the jury against Pitchford, and Judge Joseph Loper, the trial judge who allowed it to happen, are well known to this court.
They’re the same culprits responsible for the death sentence conviction of Curtis Flowers, which the Supremes overturned in 2019.
In that 7-2 case, Kavanaugh — also writing for the majority — deplored how “a relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals” denied Flowers the right to a fair trial.
Who pursued that relentless, unconstitutional strategy? The same Doug Evans.
And who allowed it to occur? Judge Loper.
Ever since 1986, Supreme Court precedent has forbidden prosecutors from excluding jurors based on their race or ethnicity.
That’s when the court struck down the conviction of James Batson, an African-American man who had stood trial in Kentucky for burglary and receipt of stolen goods.
Under state law, the prosecutor was allowed four peremptory or unexplained challenges — and he used all four to exclude African American members of the jury pool, creating an all-white jury.
The high court’s Batson v. Kentucky decision made the trial judge responsible for spotting when challenges are being used to exclude jurors based on race, and responsible for stopping it.
That’s the ruling the justices reaffirmed in last week’s Pitchford case.
How did the left react? With complaints.
Slate’s Jurisprudence column grumbled, “This court will recognize genuine racism only when doing so costs almost nothing.”
New York Times guest columnist Avital Fried offered begrudging approval, but said the ruling “highlights how much work still needs to be done.”
Don’t buy these backhanded compliments.
In truth, America’s jury system is not broken.
Numerous broad-scale studies over decades show that jurors try hard to be fair, produce the same verdict as a judge would reach more than three-quarters of the time, and tend to be more lenient than judges toward the accused.
Yet in many blue states, Democrats are pushing for “reforms” that will tilt jury selection in ways they believe will make convictions less likely — with rules they regard as racial proxies.
Crime victims can take a hike.
A law recently adopted by Washington state, and later copied by Connecticut and New Jersey, bars prosecutors from striking potential jurors who express distrust of the criminal justice system, have friends or family members who have been arrested, have a child out of wedlock, or collect state benefits.
Democratic lawmakers consider those traits as proxies for being black. How racist is that.
And how unfair to minorities, who suffer the most from violent crimes and lawless neighborhoods.
Racism is prohibited in jury selection, as it should be.
The Supremes backed up that longstanding principle on Thursday.
But don’t pack our juries with pro-crime, anti-cop jurors in the name of racial fairness.
In Pitchford v. Cain the court affirmed what it has ruled many times, and what most Americans know in their hearts: Justice is color-blind.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
