The following pending petitions involve issues of interest to capital habeas litigators:
Klein v. Martin, 25-51 (cert. petition filed July 11, 2025)
(case below: 2025 WL 215521 (4th Cir.) (unpublished))
Question presented:
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) establishes a “highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002) (citation and quotation marks omitted). In this case, a Maryland appellate court rejected respondent’s postconviction claim that the State suppressed evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), holding that there was not a reasonable probability that the result of his trial would have been different had the suppressed evidence been timely disclosed to the defense considering the strength of other evidence establishing his guilt. A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit concluded that although the state court correctly articulated applicable federal law, the state court’s application of that law was unreasonable because its written analysis of the evidence was, in the Forth Circuit’s view, insufficiently “nuanced” and “exhaustive[].” App. 23a, 26a (citation omitted). The question presented is:
Did the Fourth Circuit violate AEDPA’s deferential standard by overturning a state-court decision based on the supposed lack of “nuance” and “exhaustiveness” in the court’s written opinion, rather than the reasonableness of its legal conclusion?
Pitchford v. Cain, 24-7351 (cert. petition filed May 28, 2025)
(case below: 126 F.4th 422 (5th Cir.))
Questions presented:
District Attorney Doug Evans convicted Terry Pitchford, aged 18 years at the time of the crime, of capital murder and secured a death verdict in the Grenada Circuit Court before Judge Joseph Loper on February 9, 2006, with the entirety of jury selection and opening arguments taking place on February 6.
After direct and collateral reviews in state court, the Northern District of Mississippi granted habeas corpus relief upon concluding that the trial court failed to determine the plausibility of the prosecutor’s proffered reasons for peremptorily striking four Black venire members or otherwise consider the full circumstances bearing upon whether Mr. Evans’s reasons for striking any and each of these four venire members was pretextual and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In so doing, the District Court ruled the state supreme court’s reliance on its waiver jurisprudence improperly foreclosed consideration of pretext under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
The Fifth Circuit reversed, finding that Judge Loper implicitly made determinations for each of the four strikes, trial counsel waived argument of pretext, and the Supreme Court of Mississippi’s waiver jurisprudence comports with Batson.
This opinion in Pitchford v. Cain confirmed the Fifth Circuit’s disavowal of earlier circuit jurisprudence recognizing, inter alia, that since Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231 (2005) (Miller-El II), capital petitioners had been unable to “waive[] any Batson claim based on a comparison analysis,” Woodward v. Epps, 580 F.3d 318, 338 (5th Cir. 2009), deepening the Fifth Circuit’s split, joined by two other circuits, with the majority of courts of appeals in the application of Batson.
This petition presents the following questions:
1. Does clearly established federal law determined by this Court and applied in six other circuits require reversal of a state appellate court’s denial of relief from a capital prosecutor’s discriminatory exercise of four peremptory strikes against Black venire members wherein the trial court, for each of the four strikes, failed to determine “the plausibility of the reason in light of all evidence with a bearing on it”? Miller-El II, 545 U.S at 251–52.
2. Does Mississippi Supreme Court precedent, which deems waived on direct review arguments of pretext not stated in the trial record, defy this Court’s clearly established federal law under Batson?
3. Does a finding of waiver on a trial record possessing Batson objections, defense counsel efforts to argue the objection, and the trial court’s express assurance the issues were preserved, constitute an unreasonable determination of facts?
Humphreys v. Emmons, 24-826 (cert. petition filed Jan. 31, 2025)
(case below: 2024 WL 2945070 (11th Cir.) (unpublished))
Question presented:
Whether a federal court must apply the deferential review provisions of AEDPA to the state court’s adjudication of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim when deciding whether that claim constitutes cause and prejudice to overcome a procedural default.
to view the certiorari petition.