State v. Osorio

One of our most cherished rights is the right to trial by a fair and impartial jury. We zealously guard that right by, among other things, requiring that the jury selection process be free of racial or ethnic taint. When it has been discerned that impermissible bias has infected the selection of a jury, we have not hesitated to excise that cancer and require a new trial, one where prejudice and hatred have no place.

We refine slightly the methodology to be applied in gauging bias claims in the jury selection process, reaffirming that a three-step process must be employed whenever it has been…