U.S. Supreme Court News | Race Discrimination & Compassionate Release

This past week, the Supreme Court handed multiple opinions related to criminal law, appeals, and postconviction relief.

The first opinion is Pitchford v. Cain, emanating from Mississippi. [1] Before we dig in, we should note a little history. The Supreme Court previously held that the Equal Protection Clause bars prosecutors from exercising peremptory challenges to strike potential jurors based on race. [2] If a defense attorney believes that the prosecutor is improperly striking jurors based on race, there are three steps to follow: (1) Defense counsel objects to the strike as based on race. (2) The prosecutor must provide a race-neutral reason for the strike. (3) If defense counsel believes the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason is pretextual, he or she must argue it is such and the trial court must decide. [3]

Years ago, a Mississippi prosecutor named Doug Evans prosecuted a man named Curtis Flowers across six trials. [4] The first three trials were reversed by the state supreme court, twice on the issue of improperly discriminating in excluding jurors. [5] The fourth and fifth trials ended in hung juries. [6] On the sixth trial, Evans convicted Flowers and the case made it past a divided Mississippi Supreme Court for the prosecution improperly striking jurors on the basis of race. [7] In 2019, the U.S. Supreme held that the prosecution’s pattern of improperly striking jurors on the basis of race persisted from the first trial through the sixth trial and reversed for further proceedings. [8]

Pitchford was another of Doug Evans’ cases before the same judge who presided over the sixth trial in Flowers. [9] As in Flowers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh reversed his conviction. Even under the deferential standard for federal habeas corpus sought by state inmates, the Court found the state court did not engage in the third step for pretextual strikes. Doug Evans has since retired. [10]

The Supreme Court’s next case of the week was Fernandez v. United States. [11] At the center of the case was the federal statute providing for compassionate release and what constituted “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to warrant a sentence reduction. [12] Joe Fernandez had received compassionate release under the compassionate release statute on the basis of his being innocent. The government appealed and the federal appeals court reversed the decision and found that challenges to the validity of a conviction cannot be the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” required for compassionate release. [13] Noting that the majority of the federal appellate circuits had agreed, the Supreme Court reversed the granting of relief. Specifically, the Court held that when a prisoner seeks a sentence reduction based on the weakness of the evidence, such a challenge is made against the validity of the conviction and must be brought under a 2255 petition.

The third case of the week was Rutherford v. United States, [14] which was arguably a companion case to Fernandez. At issue was whether a change to a federal statute, [15], made in the First Step Act constituted grounds for a sentence reduction. The Supreme Court held the non-retroactive change to the statute could not make a prisoner eligible for compassionate release. The Court further held that the United States Sentencing Commission’s “unusually long sentence” provision [16] for extraordinary and compelling reasons promulgated by the Commission conflicted with the statute to the extent it was inconsistent.

For criminal defendants, the week’s opinions are primarily bad news. While Pitchford reaffirmed constitutional guarantees associated with the jury, Rutherford and Fernandez shut the door to relief in many circumstances. Nonetheless, new opportunities for relief will present themselves. If you or someone you love needs help getting relief from their sentence, contact Peter Armstrong, Attorney at Law, for a free consultation.

References:

1.    Available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-7351_jiel.pdf.

2.    Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 86 (1986). (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/476/79/)

3.    Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 252 (2005). (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/231/)

4.    Mississippi v. Flowers, 588 U.S. 284, 287 (2019). (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/588/17-9572/)

5.    Id.

6.    Id.

7.    Id. at 287-88.

8.    Id. at 315-16.

9.    Supreme Court rules for Black death row inmate from Mississippi over racial bias in makeup of jury, available at https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-death-penalty-racial-discrimination-a95ba2fd8163923ecd62e0d8384e89c5; Pitchford v. State of Mississippi, 45 So. 3d 216 (Miss. 2010) (https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/pitchford-v-state-of-892262841)

10. Parker Yesko, Mississippi DA, Exposed for Striking Black Jurors, Leaves His Office On His Own Terms, June 30, 2023, available at https://boltsmag.org/mississippi-da-doug-evans-retires/.

11. Available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-556_8m58.pdf.

12. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3582)

13. United States v. Fernandez, 104 F.4th 420 (2d Cir. 2024) (https://hallapproved.com/us/cases/ca2/2024/9528565/)

14. Available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-820_97be.pdf.

15. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/924)

16. Available here at p. 203: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2025/APPENDIX_C_VOL_IV.pdf