Joseph Loper

Joseph Loper is a judge who presided over the 2006 capital murder trial of Terry Pitchford in Mississippi. He is newsworthy because the Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments regarding alleged racial bias in the jury selection process of that trial. The now-retired prosecutor, Doug Evans, removed nearly all Black individuals from the jury, a decision that Loper, as the presiding judge, allowed. Pitchford was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death, and the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction. The current Supreme Court case revisits this decision, focusing on whether Evans's jury strikes were racially motivated and whether Loper's allowance of those strikes violated Pitchford's constitutional rights. The case is significant because it raises important questions about racial bias in the criminal justice system, particularly in death penalty cases, and the role of judges in ensuring fair jury selection.