JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The state’s highest court has denied a death row inmate’s request for discovery to determine whether his attorney failed him during the jury selection process.

On Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Tony Terrell Clark’s petition to appeal a lower court’s order denying discovery should be upheld.

Clark, who was sentenced to death in 2018 for killing a 13-year-old boy working at his father’s convenience store, argued his attorney failed to provide the court proof that several Black jurors had been improperly dismissed from his case, while several white jurors were allowed to remain.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected Clark’s motion for discovery seeking documentation to back up his claims.

In a one-page order, the Supreme Court rejected his petition to appeal that decision.

It’s a ruling that Justice Leslie King decried in a seven-page response.

“This court consistently finds that defendants have not proved pretext when the state strikes Black jurors,” he wrote. “This court now hinders a defendant’s attempt to prove pretext. It seems to demand that defense counsel go above and beyond, and read the collective mind of the state’s prosecutors in order to show pretext, but when a defendant attempts to conduct a thorough investigation to meet this court’s impossibly high standards of proof… this court denies him the opportunity.”

Clark argues that three Black jurors were dismissed because the state alleged that they shared the same last names as others who had been arrested and convicted in Madison County.

However, Clark alleges that several white jurors also shared names with “people prominent in the Madison County criminal justice system,” but no list proving that was ever provided.

He claims that his attorney should have sought that information during the voir dire, but the attorney did not.

King wrote that appellate procedure rules allow for discovery in death penalty post-conviction proceedings to gather information that could support applying for relief.

“Notably, the petitioner need not prove to any certain degree that the discretionary discovery will render his petition for post-conviction relief successful; he [needs] only show that it is ‘likely’ to be ‘helpful’ in the ‘investigation, preparation, and presentation’ of the issues,” King wrote. “Thus, if it is ‘likely’ to be ‘helpful’ merely in furthering better investigation, it should be granted.”

King goes on to say that this is Clark’s first petition for post-conviction relief, and he likely would lose additional discovery rights on future PCRs.

“Thus, this is likely his only substantive bite at this apple,” he wrote.

King was joined by Justice Jim Kitchens.

The majority order was written by Justice Dawn Beam. She was joined by Justices Michael Randolph, Josiah Coleman, James Maxwell, Robert Chamberlin, David Ishee, and Kenneth Griffis.

The ruling comes about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, arguing that Clark’s sentence should be vacated and replaced with life without parole after the state unfairly disqualified potential Black jurors.

The jury had 11 white members, one Black member, and two white alternates.

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