Terry Pitchford

Terry Pitchford was 18 when he and a 16-year-old pal were charged with killing a storekeeper in Mississippi.

Though the 16-year-old fired the fatal shot, prosecutors cut a deal with him for a 20-year sentence and then obtained a conviction and death sentence against Pitchford.

But today, the Supreme Court threw out the conviction because the trial judge allowed the prosecutor to remove four of five black members from the jury pool, leaving just one black person on the jury and

in a county that's 40 percent Black.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the court's three liberals.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.