Alvarado v. United States

At his criminal trial, petitioner claimed that the Government used certain peremptory challenges to remove black jurors solely on the grounds of race, contrary to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). The District Court accepted the Government’s explanations for its challenges, and petitioner was convicted. He pursued his Batson claim in the Court of Appeals, claiming that the Government’s explanations were pretextual. The Government asserted that petitioner had *544not made out a prima facie Batson error and that it had race-neutral reasons for each challenge. The Court of Appeals did not…