What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Mississippi case over whether the state high court unreasonably found that a petitioner waived a chance to rebut prosecutors’ race-neutral explanations for striking four Black jurors.
The grant in Pitchford v. Cain is limited to an AEDPA question under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), according to the court’s order list. The justices did not decide the merits, and the order list does not include separate reasoning or any noted votes.
The question presented asks whether the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably determined that the petitioner waived his right to respond to the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for the peremptory strikes. The order frames the case as a federal habeas review dispute under AEDPA rather than as a freestanding ruling on the underlying jury-selection issue.
The same order list included a separate summary disposition in Holman v. Rollins, where the justices granted certiorari, vacated the judgment and sent the case back to the Sixth Circuit for further consideration in light of Lackey v. Stinnie.
The court also granted the Solicitor General leave to participate as an amicus curiae and divide argument in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish. The order list further granted several procedural motions, denied numerous certiorari petitions and rehearing petitions, denied one original habeas petition, and dismissed a mandamus petition under Rule 39.8 after citing repeated abuse of the court’s process.
The Pitchford grant is the main appellate development because it puts before the justices a narrow question about how deferential federal habeas review applies when a state court finds waiver in a jury-strikes dispute. Further reporting will require the petition, lower-court materials and docket history to explain the underlying facts, arguments and procedural path.