Griffith v. Kentucky

These cases, one state and one federal, concern the retrospective application of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986).

In Batson, 476 U. S., at 96-98, this Court ruled that a defendant in a state criminal trial could establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, based on the prosecution’s use of peremptory challenges to strike members of the defendant’s race from the jury venire, and that, once the defendant had made the prima facie showing, the burden shifted to the prosecution to come forward with a neutral explanation for those challenges.…