2026-05-28T18:19:19.4Z / 路透社
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- 内容摘要
- 黑人被告人由绝大多数白人陪审团定罪
- 案件在密西西比州法院审理
- 检察官驳回了四名黑人潜在陪审员的资格
- 最高法院2019年曾支持另一名密西西比州囚犯
5月28日（路透社）——美国最高法院周四支持密西西比州一名黑人死囚，该囚犯指控检察官在2006年将其定罪的审判中，以种族歧视为由排除黑人潜在陪审员。这名囚犯因参与谋杀一名杂货店店主而被判有罪。
大法官们以5票赞成、4票反对的结果裁定，密西西比州法院未对特里·皮奇福德的主张进行适当评估。皮奇福德称，四名黑人潜在陪审员被非法解雇，违反了1986年具有里程碑意义的最高法院判例《巴特森诉肯塔基州案》，该判例禁止基于种族排除陪审员。
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判处皮奇福德死刑的12人陪审团中仅有一名黑人成员。当时该审判所在县的黑人人口约占40%。
“在本案中，无论是由于困惑、疏忽、过于仓促的陪审团遴选流程还是其他原因，程序都出现了纰漏，”布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官代表法院写道。
卡瓦诺得到了同为保守派的首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨以及法院三名自由派大法官的支持。
卡瓦诺写道，密西西比州最高法院“不合理地适用了明确确立的巴特森判例，并不合理地认定皮奇福德放弃了反驳检察官提出的移除潜在陪审员的种族中立理由的机会”。
尼尔·戈萨奇大法官对周四的裁决提出异议，其他保守派大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯、塞缪尔·阿利托和艾米·科尼·巴雷特加入了异议。
戈萨奇表示，皮奇福德未达到1996年联邦法律规定的严格标准，该法律加大了个人在联邦法院挑战州定罪的难度。
现年40岁的皮奇福德在18岁时被捕并被指控参与2004年在密西西比州北部乡村格林纳达附近的十字路口杂货店实施的武装抢劫，其同伙开枪打死了该店的白人店主鲁本·布里特。
最高法院实际上恢复了美国地区法官迈克尔·米尔斯2023年的裁决，该裁决以州法院违反巴特森判例为由撤销了皮奇福德的定罪。总部位于新奥尔良的美国第五巡回上诉法院2025年推翻了该法官的裁决。
皮奇福德的律师约瑟夫·佩尔科维奇表示，皮奇福德“现在有权在州法院获得公平审判”，他对最高法院的裁决表示欢迎。
“我们非常高兴法院承认州法院在执行宪法规定的基本保护措施方面存在严重失误，”佩尔科维奇补充道。
此案与法院2019年面临的一起案件相似，当时法院在发现检察官道格·埃文斯非法排除黑人潜在陪审员后，撤销了另一名密西西比州黑人死囚柯蒂斯·弗劳尔斯的定罪。现已退休的埃文斯也曾是皮奇福德案的检察官。
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US Supreme Court sides with death row inmate who claimed racial bias in jury selection
2026-05-28T18:19:19.4Z / Reuters
A fountain outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 14, 2026. REUTERS/Will Dunham/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
- Summary
- Black defendant was convicted by mostly white jury
- Case was tried in state court in Mississippi
- Prosecutor dismissed four Black potential jurors
- Justices backed another Mississippi inmate in 2019
May 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court sided on Thursday with a Black death row inmate in Mississippi who accused prosecutors of racial discrimination in blocking Black potential jurors for a trial in which he was convicted in 2006 for his role in the murder of a grocery store owner.
The justices ruled 5-4 that state courts in Mississippi did not properly evaluate Terry Pitchford’s claim that four Black potential jurors had been unlawfully dismissed in violation of a landmark 1986 Supreme Court precedent known as Batson v. Kentucky that prohibits excluding jurors based on their race.
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Only one member of the 12-person jury that convicted Pitchford and sentenced him to death was Black. Black people made up about 40% of the population of the county where the trial was held at the time.
“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process or some other cause, things broke down,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court.
Kavanaugh was joined by fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal members.
The Mississippi Supreme Court “unreasonably applied the clearly established Batson precedents and unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons” for removing the potential jurors, Kavanaugh wrote.
Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from Thursday’s decision, joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett.
Gorsuch said that Pitchford had not met the stringent standards under a 1996 federal law that made it harder for individuals to challenge state convictions in federal court.
Pitchford, 40, was 18 years old when he was arrested and charged for participating in a 2004 armed robbery at the Crossroads Grocery near Grenada in rural north-central Mississippi, in which his accomplice fatally shot the shop’s white owner, named Reuben Britt.
The Supreme Court effectively reinstated a 2023 decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Mills to throw out Pitchford’s conviction based on the state court’s violation of the Batson precedent. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned the judge’s decision in 2025.
Pitchford is “now entitled to a fair trial in the state court,” said his lawyer Joseph Perkovich, who welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“We are very pleased to see the court recognize the extreme failure of the state courts to enforce essential protections under the Constitution,” Perkovich added.
The case presented similarities to one that the court confronted in 2019 when it threw out the conviction of another Black Mississippi death row inmate, Curtis Flowers, after finding that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, unlawfully blocked Black potential jurors. Evans, who is now retired, also was the prosecutor in Pitchford’s case.
Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham
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