Peremptory Challenges.
Parties to federal criminal proceedings have a limited number of peremptory challenges, which are requests to disqualify potential jurors without showing cause. Rule 24(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allows a certain number of peremptory challenges based on the gravity of the charged offense. The trial court may grant additional peremptory challenges in cases with multiple defendants.
Peremptory challenges are not constitutionally required, and impairment of a defendant's use of peremptory challenges on its own is not unconstitutional. In federal cases, a defendant's exercise of peremptory challenges is not improperly impaired when the defendant uses a peremptory challenge to remove a juror who should have been excused for cause.
Peremptory Challenges: Equal Protection Issues. The use of peremptory challenges to exclude persons from the petit jury based on their race or gender violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court outlined a three-step test for evaluating whether a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges is a constitutional violation. First, the defendant must establish a prima facie case of intentional racial discrimination by showing that (1) defendant is a member of a cognizable racial group; (2) the group's members have been excluded from the defendant's jury; and (3) the circumstances of the case raise an inference that the exclusion was based on race.
Since Batson, the Court has loosened the requirements for establishing a prima facie case in three respects: (1) a criminal defendant may object to race-based peremptory challenges on equal protection grounds regardless of whether the defendant and the excluded juror are of the same race; (2) the prosecution may challenge the defendant's use of peremptory challenges on equal protection grounds; and (3) either party may challenge gender-based exclusion.
Second, to rebut a prima facie showing of intentional discrimination, the proponent of the peremptory challenge must offer a race-neutral explanation. This explanation need not be “persuasive, or even plausible,” but must be more than a mere affirmation of good faith or assumption that the challenged juror would be “partial to the defendant because of their shared race.”
Finally, the court must determine whether the explanation is facially raceneutral and whether the opponent of the peremptory challenge has proven purposeful racial discrimination. Appellate courts will uphold the trial court's finding unless it is clearly erroneous.
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