United States v. Rutledge

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

At the jury selection preceding Anthony Rutledge’s criminal trial, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to strike the only two African-American members in the venire. Suspecting that these actions violated the Equal Protection Clause, Rutledge’s attorney objected to the strikes using the three-step procedure established in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).

This appeal focuses solely on Bat-son’s third step, which requires the district court to make a finding of fact regarding the prosecutor’s credibility after the prosecutor has…