SCOTUS to hear appeal of Mississippi death row inmate alleging race bias in jury selection – National & International News
Supreme Court to hear appeal of Black Mississippi death row inmate alleging racial bias in jury selection.
Actor, director Rob Reiner and wife found stabbed to death in their home. Son in custody.
Supreme Court to hear appeal of Black Mississippi death row inmate alleging racial bias in jury selection
In the spring, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal from Mississippi death row inmate Terry Pitchford. Pitchford was convicted in 2006 of the 2004 murder of Reuben Britt, the owner of the Crossroads Grocery outside Grenada, MS, during an armed robbery. Pitchford claims that the jury that convicted him was selected based on race and is asking that his conviction be overturned. A federal court did overturn Pitchford’s conviction and sentence in 2023, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction and sentence earlier this year.
Pitchford’s case was prosecuted by former District Attorney Doug Evans, who formerly served Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District (covering Attala, Carroll, Choctaw, Grenada, Montgomery, Webster, and Winston counties). Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have previously found that Evans wrongly excluded Black jurors from trials with Black defendants. Evans left office in 2023.
The case of Curtis Flowers
The most notorious case of Evans’s career was that of Curtis Flowers. Evans prosecuted Flowers six times for a 1996 quadruple murder at a Winona furniture store. These resulted in two mistrials for hung juries, and four convictions which were subsequently overturned either for racial bias in jury selection or other prosecutorial misconduct. In Flowers’s first trial in 1997, he was convicted by an all-white jury.
The Supreme Court ultimately threw out Flowers’ conviction for a final time in 2019. The court cited Evans’s discriminatory exclusion of Black jurors in Flowers’s final 2010 conviction. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Evans had undertaken a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals”. Kavanaugh said this suggested a desire “to try Flowers before a jury with as few Black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury”.
Actor, director Rob Reiner and his wife found stabbed to death in their home
Beloved director Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, photographer and producer Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found deceased in their home, reportedly by their daughter Romy. The couple had reportedly suffered stab wounds. The couple’s son Nick Reiner, 32, has been arrested and booked on suspicion of his parents’ murder.
Nick Reiner has suffered from drug addiction, first entering rehab when he was 15. Nick’s struggles inspired the 2016 film “Being Charlie,” directed by Rob and co-written by Nick.
The Reiners’ deaths have shocked Hollywood and tributes have been pouring in from stars and friends. Rob, son of legendary comedian and actor Carl Reiner, first came to prominence in the 1970s playing Archie Bunker’s son-in-law “Meathead” on “All in the Family”. Reiner went on to direct several much beloved film during the 1980s and 90s, including “The Princess Bride” (1987), “When Harry Met Sally” (1989), and “A Few Good Men” (1992).
Michele Singer Reiner met her husband on the set of “When Harry Met Sally”. She contributed behind-the-scenes to several of his features thereafter. She was a noted photographer and photographed Donald Trump for the cover of his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal”.
Trump’s comments on Reiners’ deaths spark outrage
Upon hearing of the Reiners’ deaths, President Trump wrote on Truth Social, ““A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS”.
Reiner was known for his liberal politics and had long been a vociferous Trump critic. Nevertheless, Trump’s comments drew widespread condemnation, even from prominent Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA).
Other news of note:
Australia: 15 gunned down by two shooters (believed to be a father and son) at a massive Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in one of country’s worst mass shootings in 30 years. Attackers reportedly motivated by “Islamic State ideology”. Muslim bystander who disarmed one of the gunmen is hailed as a hero. He was shot in the arm and is recovering in hospital.
In massive turn in peace talks, Zelensky says he will relinquish Ukraine’s NATO ambitions in exchange for security guarantees.
Brian Walshe found guilty of killing his wife and dismembering her body.
Chile elects Jose Antonio Kast as president, furthering South America’s rightward turn.
Trial begins for Wisconsin judge who helped migrant evade federal law enforcement earlier this year.
