Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-1428
Timestamp: 2018-10-17 18:16:07
Document Index: 292599375

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§203', '§2254']

DAVIS v. AYALA | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
DAVIS v. AYALA ( )
During jury selection in respondent Ayala’s murder trial, Ayala, who is Hispanic, objected that seven of the prosecution’s peremptory challenges were impermissibly race-based under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79. The judge permitted the prosecution to disclose its reasons for the strikes outside the presence of the defense and concluded that the prosecution had valid, race-neutral reasons for the strikes. Ayala was eventually convicted and sentenced to death. On appeal, the California Supreme Court analyzed Ayala’s challenge under both Batson and its state-law analogue, concluding that it was error, as a matter of state law, to exclude Ayala from the hearings. The court held, however, that the error was harmless under state law and that, if a federal error occurred, it too was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18. Ayala subsequently pressed his claims in federal court. There, the District Court held that even if the ex parte proceedings violated federal law, the state court’s harmlessness finding could not be overturned because it was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under 28 U. S. C. §2254(d). A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit disagreed and granted Ayala habeas relief. The panel majority held that the ex parte proceedings violated Ayala’s federal constitutional rights and that the error was not harmless under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, as to at least three of the seven prospective jurors.
(a) Even assuming that Ayala’s federal rights were violated, he is entitled to habeas relief only if the prosecution cannot demonstrate harmlessness. Glebe v. Frost, 574 U. S. ___, ___. Under Brecht, federal habeas petitioners “are not entitled to habeas relief based on trial error unless they can establish that it resulted in ‘actual prejudice.’ ” 507 U. S., at 637. Because Ayala seeks federal habeas corpus relief, he must meet the Brecht standard, but that does not mean, as the Ninth Circuit thought, that a state court’s harmlessness determination has no significance under Brecht. The Brecht standard subsumes the requirements that §2254(d) imposes when a federal habeas petitioner contests a state court’s determination that a constitutional error was harmless under Chapman. Fry v. Pliler, 551 U. S. 112, 120. But Brecht did not abrogate the limitation on federal habeas relief that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 plainly sets out. There is no dispute that the California Supreme Court held that any federal error was harmless under Chapman, and this decision was an “adjudication on the merits” of Ayala’s claim. Accordingly, a federal court cannot grant Ayala relief unless the state court’s rejection of his claim was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court, or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Pp. 9–12.
(2) The prosecution stated that it struck Gerardo O., a Hispanic man, because he had a poor grasp of English, his answers suggested an unwillingness to impose the death penalty, and he did not appear to get along with other jurors. Each of these reasons was amply supported by the record, and there is no basis for finding that the absence of defense counsel affected the trial judge’s evaluation of the strike. Ayala cannot establish that the ex parte hearing actually prejudiced him or that no fairminded jurist could agree with the state court’s application of Chapman. Once again, the Ninth Circuit’s decision was based on a misapplication of basic rules regarding harmless error. The inquiry is not whether the federal habeas court could definitively say that the defense could make no winning arguments, but whether the evidence in the record raised “grave doubt[s]” about whether the trial judge would have ruled differently. O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U. S. 432, 436. That standard was not met in this case. Pp. 18–24.
A quarter-century after a California jury convicted Hector Ayala of triple murder and sentenced him to death, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted Ayala’s application for a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the State to retry or release him. The Ninth Circuit’s decision was based on the procedure used by the trial judge in ruling on Ayala’s objections under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), to some of the prosecution’s peremptory challenges of prospective jurors. The trial judge allowed the prosecutor to explain the basis for those strikes outside the presence of the defense so as not to disclose trial strategy. On direct appeal, the California Supreme Court found that if this procedure violated any federal constitutional right, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The Ninth Circuit, however, held that the error was harmful.
The Ninth Circuit’s decision was based on the misapplication of basic rules regarding harmless error. Assuming without deciding that a federal constitutional error occurred, the error was harmless under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993), and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C. §2254(d).
“We have concluded that error occurred under state law, and we have noted [the suggestion in United States v. Thompson, 827 F. 2d 1254 (CA9 1987),] that excluding the defense from a Wheeler-type hearing may amount to a denial of due process. We nonetheless conclude that the error was harmless under state law (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836), and that, if federal error occurred, it, too, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U. S. 18, 24) as a matter of federal law. On the record before us, we are confident that the challenged jurors were excluded for proper, race-neutral reasons.” Id., at 264, 6 P. 3d, at 204.
The California Supreme Court also rejected Ayala’s argument that his conviction should be vacated because most of the questionnaires filled out by prospective jurors who did not serve had been lost at some point during the decade that had passed since the end of the trial. The court wrote that “the record is sufficiently complete for us to be able to conclude that [the prospective jurors who were the subject of the contested peremptories] were not challenged and excused on the basis of forbidden group bias.” Id., at 270, 6 P. 3d, at 208. And even if the loss of the questionnaires was error under federal or state law, the court held, the error was harmless under Chapman and its state-law analogue. Two justices of the State Supreme Court dissented. We then denied certiorari. 532 U. S. 1029 (2001).
In 2013, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit granted Ayala federal habeas corpus relief and required California either to release or retry him. Ayala v. Wong, 756 F. 3d 656 (2014). Because Ayala’s federal petition is subject to the requirements of AEDPA, the panel majority began its analysis by inquiring whether the state court had adjudicated Ayala’s claims on the merits. Applying de novo review, 1 the panel held that the ex parte proceedings violated the Federal Constitution, and that the loss of the questionnaires violated Ayala’s federal due process rights if that loss deprived him of “the ability to meaningfully appeal the denial of his Batson claim.” Id., at 671. The
Turning to the question of harmlessness, the panel identified the applicable standard of review as that set out in Brecht and added: “We apply the Brecht test without regard for the state court’s harmlessness determination.” 756 F. 3d, at 674 (internal quotation marks omitted). 2 The panel used the following complicated formulation to express its understanding of Brecht’s application to Ayala’s claims: “If we cannot say that the exclusion of defense counsel with or without the loss of the questionnaires likely did not prevent Ayala from prevailing on his Batson claim, then we must grant the writ.” 756 F. 3d, at 676. Applying this test, the panel majority found that the error was not harmless, at least with respect to three of the seven prospective jurors. The panel asserted that the absence of Ayala and his counsel had interfered with the trial court’s ability to evaluate the prosecution’s proffered justifications for those strikes and had impeded appellate review, and that the loss of the questionnaires had compounded this impairment.
The test for whether a federal constitutional error was harmless depends on the procedural posture of the case. On direct appeal, the harmlessness standard is the one prescribed in Chapman, 386 U. S. 18: “[B]efore a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 24.
In a collateral proceeding, the test is different. For reasons of finality, comity, and federalism, habeas petitioners “are not entitled to habeas relief based on trial error unless they can establish that it resulted in ‘actual prejudice.’ ” Brecht, 507 U. S., at 637 (quoting United States v. Lane, 474 U. S. 438, 449 (1986)). Under this test, relief is proper only if the federal court has “grave doubt about whether a trial error of federal law had ‘substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.’ ” O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U. S. 432, 436 (1995). There must be more than a “reasonable possibility” that the error was harmful. Brecht, supra, at 637 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Brecht standard reflects the view that a “State is not to be put to th[e] arduous task [of retrying a defendant] based on mere speculation that the defendant was prejudiced by trial error; the court must find that the defendant was actually prejudiced by the error.” Calderon v. Coleman, 525 U. S. 141, 146 (1998) (per curiam).
Because Ayala seeks federal habeas corpus relief, he must meet the Brecht standard, but that does not mean, as the Ninth Circuit thought, that a state court’s harmlessness determination has no significance under Brecht. In Fry v. Pliler, 551 U. S. 112, 120 (2007), we held that the Brecht standard “subsumes” the requirements that §2254(d) imposes when a federal habeas petitioner contests a state court’s determination that a constitutional error was harmless under Chapman. The Fry Court did not hold—and would have had no possible basis for holding—that Brecht somehow abrogates the limitation on federal habeas relief that §2254(d) plainly sets out. While a federal habeas court need not “formal[ly]” apply both Brecht and “AEDPA/Chapman,” AEDPA nevertheless “sets forth a precondition to the grant of habeas relief.” Fry, supra, at 119–120.
Section 2254(d) thus demands an inquiry into whether a prisoner’s “claim” has been “adjudicated on the merits” in state court; if it has, AEDPA’s highly deferential standards kick in. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86, 103 (2011).
At issue here is Ayala’s claim that the ex parte portion of the Batson hearings violated the Federal Constitution. There is no dispute that the California Supreme Court held that any federal error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Chapman, and this decision undoubtedly constitutes an adjudication of Ayala’s constitutional claim “on the merits.” See, e.g., Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U. S. 12, 17–18 (2003) (per curiam). Accordingly, a federal habeas court cannot grant Ayala relief unless the state court’s rejection of his claim (1) was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, or (2) was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Because the highly deferential AEDPA standard applies, we may not overturn the California Supreme Court’s decision unless that court applied Chapman “in an ‘objectively unreasonable’ manner.” Id., at 18 (quoting Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63, 75 (2003)). When a Chapman decision is reviewed under AEDPA, “a federal court may not award habeas relief under §2254 unless the harmlessness determination itself was unreasonable.” Fry, supra, at 119 (emphasis in original). And a state-court decision is not unreasonable if “ ‘fairminded jurists could disagree’ on [its] correctness.” Richter, supra, at 101 (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U. S. 652, 664 (2004)). Ayala therefore must show that the state court’s decision to reject his claim “was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” 562 U. S., at 103.
“First, a defendant must make a prima facie showing that a peremptory challenge has been exercised on the basis of race; second, if that showing has been made, the prosecution must offer a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in question; and third, in light of the parties’ submissions, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has shown purposeful discrimination.” Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U. S. 472, 476–477 (2008) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
The opponent of the strike bears the burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation, Purkett v. Elem, 514 U. S. 765, 768 (1995) (per curiam), and a trial court finding regarding the credibility of an attorney’s explanation of the ground for a peremptory challenge is “entitled to ‘great deference,’ ” Felkner v. Jackson, 562 U. S. 594, 598 (2011) (per curiam) (quoting Batson, 476 U. S., at 98, n. 21). On direct appeal, those findings may be reversed only if the trial judge is shown to have committed clear error. Rice v. Collins, 546 U. S. 333, 338 (2006). Under AEDPA, even more must be shown. A federal habeas court must accept a state-court finding unless it was based on “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” §2254(d)(2). “State-court factual findings, moreover, are presumed correct; the petitioner has the burden of rebutting the presumption by ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ ” Collins, supra, at 338–339 (quoting §2254(e)(1)).
In ordering federal habeas relief based on their assessment of the responsiveness and completeness of Olanders D.’s answers, the members of the panel majority misunderstood the role of a federal court in a habeas case. The role of a federal habeas court is to “ ‘guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,’ ” Richter, 562 U. S., at 102–103 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 332, n. 5 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)), not to apply de novo review of factual findings and to substitute its own opinions for the determination made on the scene by the trial judge.
It is understandable for a prosecutor to strike a potential juror who might have difficulty understanding English. 3 The jurors who were ultimately selected heard many days of testimony, and the instructions at both the guilt and the penalty phases included “legal words” and words not common in everyday speech. The prosecution had an obvious reason to worry that service on this jury would have strained Gerardo O.’s linguistic capability.
As for the prosecution’s second proffered reason for striking Robert M.—that he had followed the Sagon Penn case 4 —the Ninth Circuit placed great emphasis on the fact that a seated white juror had followed a different murder trial, that of Robert Alton Harris. 5 But the Penn and Harris cases were quite different. Harris was convicted while Penn was acquitted; and since the Harris case was much older, the experience of following it was less likely to have an effect at the time of the trial in this case.
3 The California Supreme Court has held that “[i]nsufficient command of the English language to allow full understanding of the words employed in instructions and full participation in deliberations clearly . . . render[s] a juror ‘unable to perform his duty’ ” within the meaning of the California Penal Code. People v. Lomax, 49 Cal. 4th 530, 566, 234 P. 3d 377, 407 (2010) (citation omitted). See also Cal. Code Ann. Civ. Proc. §203(a)(6) (West 2006). The seating of jurors whose lack of English proficiency was only somewhat more pronounced than Gerardo O.’s has been held to be error. See People v. Szymanski, 109 Cal. App. 4th 1126, 135 Cal. Rptr. 2d 691 (2003).
At Hector Ayala’s trial, the prosecution exercised its peremptory strikes to dismiss all seven of the potential black and Hispanic jurors. In his federal habeas petition, Ayala challenged the state trial court’s failure to permit his attorneys to participate in hearings regarding the legitimacy of the prosecution’s alleged race-neutral reasons for its strikes. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 97–98 (1986). The Court assumes that defense counsel’s exclusion from these proceedings violated Ayala’s constitutional rights, but concludes that the Ninth Circuit erred in granting habeas relief because there is insufficient reason to believe that counsel could have convinced the trial court to reject the prosecution’s proffered reasons. I respectfully dissent. Given the strength of Ayala’s prima facie case and the comparative juror analysis his attorneys could have developed if given the opportunity to do so, little doubt exists that counsel’s exclusion from Ayala’s Batson hearings substantially influenced the outcome.
My disagreement with the Court does not stem from its discussion of the applicable standard of review, which simply restates the holding of Fry v. Pliler, 551 U. S. 112(2007). Fry rejected the argument that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U. S. C. §2254, compels federal courts to apply any standard other than that set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993), when assessing the harmlessness of a constitutional error on habeas review. 551 U. S., at 120. Brecht, in turn, held that the harmlessness standard federal courts must apply in collateral proceedings is more difficult to meet than the “ ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ ” standard applicable on direct review. 507 U. S., at 622–623 (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967)). More specifically, under Brecht, a federal court can grant habeas relief only when it concludes that a constitutional error had a “ ‘substantial and injurious effect or influence’ ” on either a jury verdict or a trial court decision. 507 U. S., at 623. Later, O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U. S. 432 (1995), clarified that this standard is satisfied when a reviewing judge “is in grave doubt about whether” the error is harmless; that is, when “the matter is so evenly balanced that [a judge] feels himself in virtual equipoise as to the harmlessness of the error.” Id., at 435 (emphasis deleted). See also ante, at 10 (quoting O’Neal, 513 U. S., at 436). Put differently, when a federal court is in equipoise as to whether an error was actually prejudicial, it must “treat the error, not as if it were harmless, but as if it affected the verdict (i.e., as if it had a ‘substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict’).” O’Neal, 513 U. S., at 435.
To apply Brecht to the facts of this case, it is essential to understand the contours of Ayala’s underlying constitutional claim or—perhaps more importantly—to appreciate what his claim is not. Trial judges assess criminal defendants’ challenges to prosecutors’ use of peremptory strikes using the three-part procedure first announced in Batson. After a defendant makes a “prima facie showing that a peremptory challenge [was] . . . exercised on the basis of race,” the prosecution is given an opportunity to “offer a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in question,” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U. S. 322, 328 (2003). The court then “decid[es] whether it was more likely than not that the challenge was improperly motivated.” Johnson v. California, 545 U. S. 162, 169, 170 (2005). This determination is a factual one, which—as the Court correctly notes—reviewing courts must accord “ ‘great deference.’ ” See ante, at 13 (quoting Felkner v. Jackson, 562 U. S. 594, 598 (2011) (per curiam)).
First, Ayala’s attorneys would have been able to call into question the credibility of the prosecution’s asserted race-neutral justifications for the use of its peremptory strikes. Of course, a trial court may identify some pretextual reasons on its own, but Snyder held that when assessing a claimed Batson error, “all of the circumstances that bear upon the issue of racial animosity must be consulted.” Snyder, 552 U. S., at 478. Absent an adversarial presentation, a diligent judge may overlook relevant facts or legal arguments in even a straightforward case. There is also great probative force to a “comparative juror analysis”—an analysis of whether the prosecution’s reasons for using its peremptory strikes against nonwhite jurors apply equally to white jurors whom it would have allowed to serve. Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S. 231, 241 (2005). See also Snyder, 552 U. S., at 483 (emphasizing importance of conducting a comparative juror analysis in the trial court). Trial courts are ill suited to perform this intensive inquiry without defense counsel’s assistance.
For the reasons described above, the fact that counsel was wrongfully excluded from Ayala’s Batson hearings on its own raises doubt as to whether the outcome of these proceedings—or the appellate courts’ review of them—would have been the same had counsel been present. 1 This doubt is exacerbated by the loss of the vast majority of the questionnaires that jurors completed at the start of voir dire, including those filled out by the seven black and Hispanic jurors against whom the prosecution exercised its peremptory strikes. The prosecution cited these questionnaires in support of its alleged race-neutral reasons at the ex parte Batson hearings. See e.g., App. 283, 298, 312, 314, 316. Without the underlying documents, however, it is impossible to assess whether the prosecution’s characterizations of those prospective jurors’ responses were fair and accurate. The loss of the questionnaires has also precluded every court that has reviewed this case from performing a comprehensive comparative juror analysis. The Court today analyzes how the prosecution’s statements at the ex parte Batson hearings regarding the black and Hispanic jurors’ questionnaires stack up against the actual questionnaires completed by the white seated jurors and alternates. But there is no way to discern how these representations compare with the answers that were given by white jurors whom the prosecution would have permitted to serve but whom the defense ultimately struck. See Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S., at 244–245 (comparing a juror struck by the prosecution with a juror challenged only by the defense).
The above-described consequences of the trial court’s procedural error and the fact that the prosecution struck every potential black or Hispanic juror go a long way toward establishing the degree of uncertainty that Brecht requires. Keeping these considerations in mind, the next step is to assess the arguments that Ayala’s attorneys may have raised had they been allowed to participate at his Batson hearings. As explained above, Ayala is entitled to habeas relief if a reviewing judge is in “equipoise” as to whether his lawyers’ exclusion from the Batson hearings had an “injurious effect” on the trial court’s failure to find by a preponderance of the evidence that any of the prosecution’s peremptory strikes was racially motivated. With the inquiry so framed, it is easy to see that the Ninth Circuit correctly found that Ayala was actually prejudiced by the trial court’s constitutional error. In particular, there is a substantial likelihood that if defense counsel had been present, Ayala could at least have convinced the trial court that the race-neutral reasons the prosecution put forward for dismissing a black juror, Olanders D., were pretextual. 2
Ayala’s attorneys could have challenged the prosecution’s claim that Olanders D. would hesitate to impose the death penalty by pointing to a seated juror—Ana L.—who made remarkably similar statements concerning capital punishment. Based on his remarks during voir dire, it appears that Olanders D. suggested on his questionnaire that he was or had been opposed to the death penalty. 3 Id., at 176, 179. Ana L.’s questionnaire contained numerous comparable statements. When asked to express her “feelings about the death penalty,” she wrote: “I don’t believe in taking a life.” Id., at 108. And, in response to a question regarding whether she “would like to serve as a juror and why?”, Ana L. said: “no—If I am selected as a Juror and all Jurors voted for the death penalty I probably would not be able to vote for the death penalty.” Id., at 109. Finally, on her questionnaire, Ana L. indicated that she believes the death penalty is imposed “[t]oo often” and that she strongly disagrees with the “adage, ‘An eye for any eye,’ ” which she understood to mean,“[a] criminal took a life[,] now [it] is our turn to take his.” Id., at 108–109.
A direct comparison of Olanders D.’s and Ana L.’s voir dire answers is equally telling. During voir dire, Olanders D. clarified that he had not intended his questionnaire to reflect that he was categorically opposed to the death penalty, but only that his views on the topic had evolved over the prior decade and that he had come to believe that the death penalty “would be an appropriate sentence under certain circumstances.” Id., at 176. To account for this change in his position, Olanders D. cited a number of considerations, including a new understanding of what his religion required, ibid., “more familiar[ity] with the laws,” id., at 178, increased violence in our soci-ety, ibid., and conversations with his immediate family, id., at 180. Ana L., by contrast, stated at voir dire that she “strongly . . . did not believe in the death penalty” up until she “[f]illed out the questionnaire.” Id., at 193. And, only after repeated attempts by both the defense and the prosecution to get her to pinpoint what caused this sudden about face, Ana L. said that she had “listen[ed] to the Bundy evidence that was said and his being put to death, and I started to think; and I said if they were guilty maybe there is a death sentence for these people.” Id., at 202. 4
As for the prosecution’s second purported justification—that his questionnaire responses “were poor,” id., at 283—it is impossible to know what winning arguments the defense could have raised because the questionnaire itself is missing from the record. 5 Indeed, for all that is known, counsel may have had a compelling argument that Olanders D.’s answers were cogent and complete. Even if some of them were lacking, however, counsel could still have drawn the trial judge’s attention to weak questionnaires completed by several of the seated jurors. For instance, if the prosecution’s claim was that Olanders D.’s questionnaire answers were conclusory, Ayala’s counsel could have referred the Court to seated juror Charles G.’s questionnaire. In response to a prompt asking prospective jurors to explain why they would or would not like to be empaneled in Ayala’s case, Charles G. wrote only “No.” Id., at 71. Alternatively, if the prosecution’s concern was that Olanders D.’s answer to a particular question demonstrated an inability to clearly express himself, the defense could have directed the court’s attention to the questionnaire completed by seated juror Thomas B. When asked to share his “impressions or feelings . . . about gangs based on what [he had] read or s[een],” Thomas B. stated: “I feel the only media coverage they get is bad, however, those whom do constructive events usually seek out positive media coverage.” Id., at 30. Finally, it bears noting that if Ayala’s lawyers had been able to respond at the Batson hearing, they would have had the questionnaires of many more comparable jurors at their disposal. It is entirely possible that some of the questionnaires completed by prospective jurors who were accepted by the prosecution but dismissed by the defense were weaker than those completed by Charles G. and Thomas B.
Given the difficulty of differentiating between Ana L.’s and Olanders D.’s views toward the death penalty based on the record before us, the Court understandably does not press this factual point further. Instead, it commits a legal error by contending that the trial court’s determination is entitled to deference because the judge—unlike this Court—had the benefit of observing both Olanders D.’s and the prosecution’s demeanor. Ante, at 16. Deference may be warranted when reviewing a substantive Batson claim. By suggesting that a trial judge can make a sound credibility determination without the benefit of an adversarial proceeding, however, the Court ignores the procedural nature of the constitutional error whose existence it purports to assume. Courts defer to credibility findings not only because of trial judges’ proximity to courtroom events, but also because of the expectations regarding the procedures used in the proceedings that they oversee. A decision to credit a prosecution’s race-neutral basis for striking a juror is entitled to great weight if that reason has “survive[d] the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.” Cronic, 466 U. S., at 656. It warrants substantially less—if any—deference where, as here, it is made in the absence of the “fundamental instrument for judicial judgment: an adversary proceeding in which both parties may participate.” Carroll v. President and Comm’rs of Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175, 183 (1968); see also Kaley, 571 U. S., at ___ (Roberts, C. J., dissenting) (slip op.,at 16) (“It takes little imagination to see that . . . ex parteproceedings create a heightened risk of error”). 6
1 Indeed, in a future case arising in a direct review posture, the Court may have occasion to consider whether the error that the Court assumes here gives rise to “circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.” United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 658 (1984). See also Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U. S. 162, 166 (2002) (noting that we have “presumed [prejudicial] effec[t] where assistance of counsel has been denied entirely or during a critical stage of the proceeding”).
6 None of the cases the Court cites are inconsistent with this logic. Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S. 231, 236–237 (2005), Snyder, 552 U. S., at 474, and Rice v. Collins, 546 U. S. 333, 336 (2006), all concerned direct challenges to a trial court’s denial of a Batson motion as opposed to procedural Batson claims.