United States Ninth Circuit

The district court’s denial of a habeas corpus petition challenging petitioner's conviction and capital sentence for murder and robbery, based on a violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), is reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the writ and order that petitioner be released from custody unless the state elects to retry him within a reasonable amount of time, where: 1) the exclusion of petitioner and his counsel from the ex parte Batson proceedings constituted prejudicial error that likely prevented petitioner from showing that the prosecution utilized its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner; and 2) the state court's harmless error finding on this issue had a prejudicial effect on the verdict. (Amended opinion)

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/25/2014
• Published 02/25/2014

Judges

• REINHARDT

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel