The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of death-row inmate Terry Pitchford, who alleges that prosecutors in his 2004 Mississippi murder trial disproportionately struck black jurors. The court granted Pitchford in forma pauperis status, allowing him to proceed without paying filing fees.

“Courts are ‘inundated’ with these requests, which often do not have merit. It is rare, so more than half of appeals for the Supreme Court are IFP appeals, and that’s because inmates have nothing to do, so they file these appeals,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, said, per the Tacoma News Tribune.

“Some of them are handwritten. There are a lot of jailhouse lawyers. Looking at it from a purely numbers perspective, you don’t even have to get into the legal analysis, right? You can say X number of potential black jurors. All but one of them ended up getting struck by the prosecutor. I think it’s just an easier case to present,” she added.

One federal judge initially overturned Pitchford’s conviction; however, a subsequent appeals court reinstated it, the outlet said.

“On February 6, 2006, Mr. Pitchford’s jury was seated in the Grenada Circuit Court, with District Attorney Evans, exclusively, exercising the prosecution’s four strikes presently at issue. Judge Loper sustained each of these strikes over the defense’s Batson objections, thereby supplying the basis for this certiorari petition,” Pitchford’s lawyers Joseph Perkovich, Joseph Welling and J. Scott Gilbert wrote in a petition.

The justices are set to determine whether the conviction will be upheld, with arguments anticipated in the spring of 2026. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch has come forward to support the lower courts’ handling of Pitchford’s Batson claim.

“Petitioner first asks this Court to decide whether the state courts violated clearly established federal law by not considering ‘evidence’ and ‘circumstances’ on his Batson claim that he failed to argue or present to the trial court. Pet. i; see Pet. 6, 15-32. That issue does not further warrant review,” Fitch noted in a filing.

The ruling may limit when prosecutors’ juror strikes violate Batson and will influence how courts address jury-selection challenges, with arguments anticipated in spring 2026.

Meanwhile, a lower court decision remanding a case for further investigation was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, which declined to temporarily halt a legal challenge to a Trump administration policy that restricts speaking engagements by immigration judges.

The justices denied the administration’s request to block a ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that resurrected a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Immigration Judges in a brief, unsigned ruling.

But the court made it clear that if the trial court proceeds with discovery before the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the case, the government may come back.

A policy that prohibits immigration judges “from speaking in their personal capacities about immigration and about the agency that employs them” is at the heart of the dispute, according to the judges’ association.

The group filed a lawsuit in Alexandria, Virginia, federal court, claiming the policy was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

The Civil Service Reform Act requires judges to pursue their claims through the federal government’s administrative review process rather than in district court, according to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s initial dismissal of the case.

Citing recent actions by President Donald Trump that it said “call into question” whether that administrative system remains independent from presidential control, the 4th Circuit returned the case to Brinkema after the association filed an appeal.

The appeals court cited Trump’s dismissal of the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Special Counsel, two individuals who are crucial to the examination of federal employment disputes.

The appeals court suggested that Congress might not have intended for federal employees to use the administrative process exclusively if it is no longer independent.