Terry Pitchford was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006. At his trial, the prosecution used peremptory strikes to eliminate four Black potential jurors from the jury pool. Pitchford objected that the strikes were based on race and so violated the Equal Protection Clause under Batson v. Kentucky. After the prosecution offered facially race-neutral reasons for the strikes, Pitchford attempted to rebut those reasons but was thwarted by the trial court’s summary conclusion of its Batson inquiry. On direct appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that Pitchford had waived his opportunity under Batson to show that the prosecution’s race-neutral reasons were actually pretextual.

Applying for habeas corpus allows people held in state custody to challenge their detention on collateral appeal. When Pitchford sought habeas review of his case in federal court, the district judge agreed that he was impermissibly denied his right to rebut during the Batson inquiry. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit disagreed and reversed, holding that Pitchford had waived his rebuttal. Pitchford asked the Supreme Court to hear his case, and it agreed to do so.

In February 2026, the Constitutional Accountability Center and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed an amici curiae brief in support of Pitchford. Our brief explains that federal courts play a critical, statutorily authorized role in reviewing state-court convictions for certain errors—and that the Fifth Circuit made one such error in unreasonably deciding that Pitchford had waived his right at trial to argue pretext.

When Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), it recalibrated the framework governing federal habeas review of state-court decisions. Although AEDPA imposed new limitations on habeas relief for applicants in state custody, “Congress did not,” as the Supreme Court has recognized, “wash away everything that came before.” As AEDPA’s text, structure, and history make clear, Section 2254(d) of the statute preserved a role for federal courts to substantively review state-court decisions; to determine if those decisions are factually unreasonable, contrary to federal law, or an unreasonable application of such law; and to award habeas relief when certain conditions are met.

When state-court cases arise in federal court on collateral appeal, AEDPA serves as a crucial backstop to ensure that important federal rights, like the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, are protected and enforced. Reconstruction Era sources confirm that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment squarely contemplated the harms of race-based jury discrimination when drafting the Equal Protection Clause. If Pitchford is barred from bringing his habeas claim under AEDPA’s general restrictions on relief, that would extinguish his right under that Clause to be free from racial discrimination in the selection of his jury.

The Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision in this case rests on an unreasonable factual determination that, under AEDPA, permits a reviewing federal court to grant habeas relief. At his trial, Pitchford objected to the prosecution’s use of peremptory strikes, arguing that they targeted Black jurors and so were unlawful under the Fourteenth Amendment. On appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that Pitchford had waived his right to rebut as pretextual the race-neutral reasons offered by the prosecution in response to his objection. But the trial-court transcript shows Pitchford’s counsel attempting to argue pretext immediately after those reasons were given until being cut off by the trial court. The Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision that Pitchford waived his pretext rebuttal was thus “an unreasonable determination of the facts” that allows a federal court to grant habeas relief under AEDPA. Because the Mississippi Supreme Court’s factual determination was unreasonable, the Fifth Circuit’s judgment should be reversed.