FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARIO ALEMAN,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

DOMINGO URIBE, JR., Warden,

Appellee-Respondent.

No. 09-55837

D.C. No.

2:06-cv-04687-

JSL-RZ

RAYMOND MALDONADO,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

GREG LEWIS, Warden, Acting

Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 09-56191

D.C. No.

2:06-cv-06606-

JSL-RZ

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

J. Spencer Letts, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

March 7, 2013—Pasadena, California

Filed June 14, 2013
2 ALEMAN V. URIBE

 The Honorable Mark L. Wolf, Senior District Judge for the U.S. *

District Court for the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.

 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

**

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw and Ronald M. Gould,

Circuit Judges, and Mark L. Wolf, Senior District Judge.*

Opinion by Judge Gould

SUMMARY

**

Habeas Corpus

Affirming the district court’s denial of a 28 U.S.C. § 2254

habeas corpus petition raising a challenge under Batson v.

Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the panel held that a state court

does not violate a defendant’s constitutional rights by denying

a Batson motion based on a prosecutor’s credible explanation

that he or she made an honest mistake in exercising a

peremptory challenge to dismiss the wrong juror.

COUNSEL

Jan B. Norman (argued), Los Angeles, California, for

Petitioner-Appellant Mario Aleman.

Fay Arfa (argued), Fay Arfa, A Law Corporation, Los

Angeles, California, for Petitioner-Appellant Raymond

Maldonado.
ALEMAN V. URIBE 3

 Some might use the term Latino/a, but because the state court 1

throughout its reasoning used the term Hispanic, we follow that approach

in this opinion.

Michael R. Johnson (argued), Deputy Attorney General;

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California; Dane R.

Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Lance E. Winters,

Senior Assistant Attorney General, Los Angeles, California,

for Respondents-Appellees.

OPINION

GOULD, Circuit Judge:

Mario Aleman and Raymond Maldonado, appeal separate

district court decisions denying their 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas

petitions. They both allege that their convictions were

secured in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79

(1986). We consolidated these cases for oral argument and

disposition because Aleman and Maldonado challenge the

same voir dire proceeding conducted before their joint trial

was held in the Superior Court for the County of Los

Angeles. Both contend that the trial court erred by accepting

as credible and race-neutral the prosecutor’s explanation for

his use of a peremptory challenge to dismiss a Hispanic1

juror. They contend that the prosecutor’s challenge was

motivated by racial bias. We have jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253, and we affirm.

I

On July 4, 2000, Aleman, Maldonado, and a third

accomplice, all members of the Toonerville street gang,
4 ALEMAN V. URIBE

robbed a man at gunpoint and took his wallet and gold

necklace. LAPD Officers Thomas Baker and Carlos

Langarica received a radio report of the robbery and

immediately saw and began following the suspects’ gray

Honda. A high-speed car-chase ensued, leading the officers

into Toonerville street-gang territory. When they reached the

heart of Toonerville territory, the officers encountered a

washing machine in the middle of the road. The officers

feared ambush. They were right. Asthe cars slowed to avoid

the washing machine, someone threw a bicycle in front of the

patrol car. The officers swerved to avoid the bicycle. Then,

while the officers were thus diverted and slowed, a sniper

started to shoot at them. The suspects also fired at the

officers from the Honda. The officers called for backup and

tried to speed away. The suspects blocked their escape. The

officers returned fire. When the gunfire ceased, the officers

arrested Maldonado and the third accomplice. Aleman was

caught fleeing the scene.

Maldonado and Aleman were each convicted by jury trial

on two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a peace

officer and one count of second-degree robbery. The jury

found that these crimes had been committed to further gang

activity. Maldonado and Aleman were each sentenced to two

consecutive life terms for attempted murder and five years for

robbery, plus various gang and weapon enhancements.

This appeal concerns the jury selection process for

Appellants’ joint trial. During voir dire, the prosecutor

exercised four of his first five peremptory challenges on

Hispanic jurors. When the prosecutor dismissed a fourth

Hispanic juror, defense counsel objected, asserting a Batson
ALEMAN V. URIBE 5

 Defense counsel objected under People v. Wheeler, 583 P.2d 748 2

(1978), the California analog to Batson. See Cook v. LaMarque, 593 F.3d

810, 813 (9th Cir. 2010). Because “a Wheeler motion serves as an

implicit Batson objection,” it was sufficient to preserve Aleman and

Maldonado’s constitutional claims. Crittenden v. Ayers, 624 F.3d 943,

951 n.2 (9th Cir. 2010).

violation. The trial court found that the defense had 2

established a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination

under Batson and asked the prosecutor to explain why he

removed each Hispanic juror.

Appellants challenge the prosecutor’s reason for excusing

one of the four jurors—Juror Acevedo. The prosecutor

explained that he dismissed Juror Acevedo based on her

statement that she was too “prissy” to be a police officer. To

him, thissuggested that Juror Acevedo might be too sensitive

for the violent details of the case. He explained that he

preferred older, more experienced jurors, and that he

preferred the two prospective jurors next in line for the panel.

The prosecutor gave similar reasons for excusing the three

other Hispanic jurors, explaining that he was concerned about

youth, sensitivity, lack of life experience, and bias against

police.

After a recess, the trial court denied the Batson challenge.

With regard to Juror Acevedo, the trial court explained that

the “prissy” comment was “not the strongest excuse,” but

concluded that it was a valid, race-neutral justification based

on the trial court’s observation of the prosecutor’s credibility

and the prosecutor’s acceptance of the jury panel several

times with Hispanic members.
6 ALEMAN V. URIBE

The next morning, the trial court once again addressed the

Batson motion. The trial judge had seen upon an independent

review of the record that another venireperson, and not Juror

Acevedo, had made the “prissy” comment. The trial court

asked the prosecutor to explain the discrepancy and to give

any other justification for excusing Juror Acevedo. The

prosecutor responded that he had been ill during voir dire,

which affected his memory and caused him to take deficient

notes. He concluded that he must have confused Juror

Acevedo with the juror who made the “prissy” comment

because they were sitting near each other and, to him, both

seemed too sensitive for the case. The trial court concluded

that the prosecutor’s exclusion of Juror Acevedo was based

on an “honest mistake” and not on racial bias. In explaining

this conclusion, the trial court reiterated that the prosecutor

had accepted the jury several times with Hispanic members.

On direct appeal, the California Court of Appeal affirmed

Aleman and Maldonado’s convictions. After a detailed

review of the facts, the Court of Appeal concluded that the

trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the

Defendants’ Batson motion and upheld the trial court’s

Batson ruling.

Aleman filed his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Petition for Writ of

Habeas Corpus in the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of California on July 27, 2006, claiming that

his constitutional rights were violated because the prosecutor

removed Juror Acevedo based on racial bias. The magistrate

judge concluded that the state courts’ decisions did not result

from an unreasonable application of Supreme Court

precedent or an unreasonable determination of the facts. The

district court accepted this reasoning and denied Aleman’s
ALEMAN V. URIBE 7

 On appeal, Maldonado also raised the uncertified issue of whether the 3

trial court denied his constitutional right to present a defense by excluding

evidence of Officer Langarica’s use of force in other situations. We

decline to expand our scope of review to include this issue because

Maldonado has not met his burden of showing that “reasonable jurists

would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims

debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).

§ 2254 petition. We granted Aleman a certificate of

appealability on his Batson claim.

The Eastern District of California also reviewed

Maldonado’s § 2254 Petition, filed on October 17, 2006. The

same magistrate judge concluded that it was not objectively

unreasonable for the state courts to find that the prosecutor

dismissed Juror Acevedo based on an honest mistake. The

district court adopted the magistrate judge’s Report and

Recommendations and denied Maldonado relief. We then

granted Maldonado a certificate of appealability on his

Batson claim.3

II

Both Aleman and Maldonado filed their § 2254 Petitions

after April 24, 1996, so our review is governed by the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

(AEDPA). See Crittenden, 624 F.3d at 949. AEDPA

establishes a “highly deferential standard of review.” Id.

Under that standard, we may grant a writ of habeas corpus

only if the last reasoned state court decision “was contrary to,

or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly

established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court

of the United States” or “was based on an unreasonable
8 ALEMAN V. URIBE

 In his brief to this court, Aleman argued that this court should review 4

his claim de novo because the California Court of Appeal recited the

erroneous “strong likelihood” standard for establishing a prima facie case

under Batson. See Williams v. Runnels, 432 F.3d 1102, 1105 (9th Cir.

2006) (“[W]here the state court used the ‘strong likelihood’ standard for

reviewing a Batson claim, . . . our review is de novo.”). But at oral

argument, Aleman’s counsel conceded that this was a losing argument.

We agree. This case concerns the California Court of Appeal’s

application of Batson’s third step. Whether Aleman established a prima

facie case of discrimination is not at issue. And even if the Court of

Appeal considered the erroneous prima facie standard in its review of

Aleman’s claim, any error would be harmless because application of the

heightened “strong likelihood” standard at step one would only strengthen

Aleman’s claim of purposeful discrimination at step three.

 A prima facie case is established if the defendant shows that “(1) the 5

prospective juror is a member of a ‘cognizable racial group,’ (2) the

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented

in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).4

III

This case requires us to resolve a single but important

question: Whether, under AEDPA’s deferential standard, a

state court violates a defendant’s constitutional rights by

denying a Batson motion based on a prosecutor’s credible

explanation that he or she made an honest mistake in

exercising a peremptory challenge to dismissthe wrong juror.

We hold that it does not.

“A Batson challenge has three steps.” Cook, 593 F.3d at

814. At the first step, the defendant must make a prima facie

showing that the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge

based on race. Id. If the court finds that a prima facie case 5
ALEMAN V. URIBE 9

prosecutor used a peremptory strike to remove the juror and (3) the totality

of the circumstances raised an inference that the strike was on account of

race.” Crittenden, 624 F.3d at 955 (quoting Batson, 476 U.S. at 96).

has been made, then step two requires the prosecutor to give

a race-neutral reason for exercising the challenge. Id. Under

Batson’s third step, the trial court must determine whether the

defendant has carried his burden to prove that the prosecutor

engaged in “purposeful discrimination.” Kesser v. Cambra,

465 F.3d 351, 359 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (quoting Batson,

476 U.S. at 98). To make this determination, the trial court

must “evaluate ‘the persuasiveness of the justification.’” Id.

(quoting Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768 (1995) (per

curiam)). “Although the prosecutor’s reasons for the strike

must relate to the case to be tried, the court need not believe

that ‘the stated reason represents a sound strategic judgment’

to find the prosecutor’s rationale persuasive; rather, it need be

convinced only that the justification ‘should be believed.’”

Jamerson v. Runnels, 713 F.3d 1218, 1224 (9th Cir. 2013)

(quoting Kesser, 465 F.3d at 359).

We have recently explained that there is a “fine

distinction between a prosecutor’s false statement that creates

a new basis for a strike that otherwise would not exist and a

prosecutor’s inaccurate statement that does nothing to change

the basis for the strike.” Id. at 1232 n.7. A prosecutor’s

credibility is undermined when he or she offers an

explanation for a peremptory challenge that mischaracterizes

a juror’s testimony in a manner completely contrary to the

juror’s stated beliefs. See id. (citing Miller-El v. Dretke,

545 U.S. 231, 243–44 (2005) (explaining that a prosecutor’s

gross mischaracterization of a juror’s stance on the death

penalty suggested an ulterior reason for excluding that juror).

On the other hand, if a prosecutor makes a mistake in good
10 ALEMAN V. URIBE

faith, such as an innocent transposition of juror information,

then that mistake does not support the conclusion that the

prosecutor’s explanation is clearly not credible. See id.

(citing Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 340 (2006)). This is a

fact-based inquiry. To determine if a prosecutor’s mistake

undermines his or her credibility, we must consider whether,

based on the facts of the case, the mistake indicates

purposeful discrimination instead of innocent error. See

Mitleider v. Hall, 391 F.3d 1039, 1049 (9th Cir. 2004)

(Batson is not violated by prosecutor’s honest, but mistaken

belief as long as it is not pretextual). After all, Batson

prohibits purposeful discrimination, not honest, unintentional

mistakes. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 98.

It was not objectively unreasonable for the California

Court of Appeal to affirm the trial court’s Batson ruling on

the ground that an honest mistake is not evidence of racial

bias. For a prosecutor to eliminate a prospective juror by

peremptory strike based on an honest mistake as to what that

juror had said in voir dire is not the same, for constitutional

purposes, as striking the juror based on an intentionally

discriminatory motive. The record supports the trial court’s

finding that the prosecutor’s mistake was credible, honest,

and unintentional. During voir dire, the prosecutor stated

several times that he was feeling under the weather. In fact,

when the prosecutor initially explained his reasons for

excusing Juror Acevedo, he stated, “I am sorry. I am having

a hard time articulating my thoughts because I am not feeling

well.” The record also shows that Juror Acevedo was sitting

near the juror who made the “prissy” comment, and, when

asked the same question about police work, Juror Acevedo

said that she would not be able to deal with the pressure of

police work. Given the prosecutor’s illness, the jurors’

proximity to each other, and the relative similarity of their
ALEMAN V. URIBE 11

comments, it is a permissible finding of the trial court to say

that the prosecutor innocently transposed the responses from

the jurors. Such “innocent transposition makes little headway

toward the conclusion that the prosecutor’s explanation was

not clearly credible.” Rice, 546 U.S. at 340.

We must give “double deference” to the trial court’s

credibility finding where that finding was affirmed by the

state court of appeals. Jamerson, 713 F.3d at 1234. One

level of deference arises from the broad power of a trial court

to assess credibility of the prosecutor’s statements that were

made in open court. Another level of deference arises from

the AEDPA context where we defer to state court decisions

that are not objectively unreasonable. See Briggs v. Grounds,

682 F.3d 1165, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012) (“Here our standard is

doubly deferential: unless the state appellate court was

objectively unreasonable in concluding that a trial court’s

credibility determination was supported by substantial

evidence, we must uphold it.”). Applying this double

deference, we cannot say that the Court of Appeal’s decision,

which relied on the trial court’s credibility finding, was

objectively unreasonable.

There is ample support in the record for the trial court’s

determination that the prosecutor did not act with purposeful

discrimination when he removed Juror Acevedo based on his

mistaken belief that she had said that she was too “prissy” for

police work. In the initial Batson proceeding, the prosecutor

explained that he removed Juror Acevedo because her

“prissy” comment caused him to believe that she was

sensitive and would have a difficult time dealing with the

firearms and violence in the case. Although, as the trial court

noted, this was not the strongest explanation, in the context of

this case it is sufficient to show the absence of discriminatory
12 ALEMAN V. URIBE

intent. See Mitleider, 391 F.3d at 1050 (“The prosecutor’s

motives, however, must be considered on the basis of the

facts set forth in each particular case.”).

Other factors reinforce that conclusion: First, the

prosecutor’s explanation was related to the case, which

involved very violent facts, and it would be reasonable to

conclude that a sensitive juror might have a tough time

dealing with that violence. See id. at 1049 (recognizing that

immaturity and lack of life experience are legitimate bases for

peremptory challenges). Second, as the trial court noted, the

prosecution accepted the panel several times with Hispanic

members. See Burks v. Borg, 27 F.3d 1424, 1429 (9th Cir.

1994) (considering the prosecutor’s acceptance of minorities

on the jury a valid, but not necessarily dispositive, factor).

Third, the trial court conducted a thorough review of the

record and twice assessed the prosecutor’s credibility, first

during its initial Batson review and then when it reopened the

Batson motion. This was not a “rubber stamp” decision by

the state trial court. Fourth, comparative analysis does not

show that the trial court’s determination was objectively

unreasonable. Appellants argue that the prosecutor did not

challenge other jurors who had less life experience than Juror

Acevedo. Although these other jurors bear some similarity to

Juror Acevedo, the record does not show that they were so

similar as to compel the conclusion that the state court erred

in concluding that the prosecutor did not purposefully

discriminate. See Burks, 27 F.3d at 1429–30 (sustaining the

state court’s decision where the objective evidence of

discrimination was relatively weak). In short, there was

ample support for the California trial court’s decision that the

prosecutor made an honest mistake and did not intentionally

discriminate in jury selection. On this premise, the California

Court of Appeal decided that the important principle of
ALEMAN V. URIBE 13

Batson was not violated. We conclude that this was not an

objectively unreasonable application of Batson. Accordingly,

we affirm the district court’s denial of habeas corpus relief.

AFFIRMED.