C.D. Pickle Jr. is still batting zero in his four-decade-long quest to win a new trial on his 1977 capital murder conviction.
In an order issued Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court declined to hear Pickle’s latest appeal.
Pickle, 16 at the time, was arrested in November 1974 for the capital murder of Mary Elizabeth Harthcock while committing the crime of rape. He was convicted in Holmes County and sentenced to death. He won a new trial in 1977, was convicted again in Leflore County and was sentenced to life in prison.
Since 1978, Pickle has repeatedly sought post-conviction relief, arguing he’s discovered some new evidence or some constitutional question that could win him a new trial. Eight times Pickle’s requests have been denied by trial court judges.
The most recent came in 2018, when Pickle, representing himself, claimed the court should have considered alternative sentencing under the state’s Youth Court Act and that his counsel was ineffective at his trial for failing to make that request.
Leflore County Circuit Judge Richard Smith rejected that claim, and Smith’s ruling was upheld in September by the Mississippi Court of Appeals.
Pickle, now 61, is being held at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
The original version of this article incorrectly named the court of appeals that upheld Smith.
