Ali v. Hickman

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

In 2001, a California state court jury convicted Petitioner-Appellant Mohammed Ali of the first-degree murder of his girlfriend, Tracey Biletnikoff. During jury selection, the prosecutor, Stephen Wagstaffe, peremptorily struck the only two African-American members of the jury pool. Ali maintains that these strikes were racially-motivated and therefore violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). We hold that a comparative juror analysis, in combination with…