Court Opinion

ID: 9431886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:33:28.513629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:30.846111
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
When jury selection began for petitioner Daniel Holland’s trial, he was presented with up to 40 jurors eligible for service. In accordance with Illinois law, the panel was blindly drawn from an active jury list,1 which in turn was composed at random,2 from a broad cross section of the com*505munity.3 At the commencement of voir dire, however, the State abandoned this neutral selection process. Rather than eliminating jurors on an individualized basis on the grounds of partiality or necessity, the prosecutor allegedly removed all the black jurors in the belief that no black citizen could be a satisfactory juror or could fairly try the case. As the Court acknowledges, that practice is “obviously” unlawful. Ante, at 487. The Court nonetheless does not reach the equal protection issue and, with respect to petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim, holds that the fair-cross-section principle of that Amendment does not “require anything beyond the inclusion of all cognizable groups in the venire.” Ante, at 478. In my opinion, it is appropriate to review petitioner’s equal protection claim, because a showing that black jurors have been eliminated solely on account of their race not only is sufficient to establish a violation of the Fourteenth Amend*506ment but also is sufficient to establish a violation of the Sixth Amendment. A jury that is the product of such a racially discriminatory selection process cannot possibly be an “impartial jury” within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment.
I
Petitioner presented two arguments to the Illinois Supreme Court in support of his claim that the racially discriminatory exclusion of black jurors from his jury violated the Federal Constitution. First, he argued that the discriminatory exclusion of all the potential black jurors from his jury violated his personal right under the Sixth Amendment to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community. Second, he argued that the State’s discriminatory use of peremptory challenges also violated the jurors’ equal protection rights which he had third-party standing to assert. The state court addressed and rejected both claims on the merits.
The Court today decides only petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim and refuses to reach the equal protection argument, even though we are unanimous in agreeing that “the systematic exclusion of blacks from the jury system through peremptory challenges” is “obviously” unlawful. Ante, at 486-487; see ante, at 488 (Kennedy, J., concurring); ante, at 491 (Marshall, J., dissenting). It does so because petitioner did not reiterate before this Court his argument that the discriminatory exclusion of black jurors violated the Equal Protection Clause. The same situation was presented in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). There, as here, the petitioner declined to challenge the discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges on equal protection grounds, framing the issue at argument and in his briefs in Sixth Amendment terms. See id., at 112-115 (Burger, C. J., dissenting).4 We nonetheless prescinded the Sixth Amend*507ment question, id., at 85, n. 4, and rested our decision in the petitioner’s favor entirely on the Equal Protection Clause. Our decision in Batson makes it appropriate to begin our analysis by recognizing that petitioner’s equal protection argument is plainly meritorious and entitles him to relief.
As Justice Kennedy and Justice Marshall note, the concerns that were expressed in Batson are not properly confined to the context in which a defendant objects to the exclusion of jurors of his own race but support also “an equal protection claim by a defendant whose race or ethnicity is different from the dismissed juror’s.” Ante, at 488 (Kennedy, J., concurring); see ante, at 491-492 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Our decision in Batson was based on the conclusion that “[rjacial discrimination in the selection of jurors harms not only the accused whose life or liberty they are summoned to try,” but also “the excluded juror.” 476 U. S., at 87. “Selection procedures that purposefully exclude black persons from juries undermine public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice.” Ibid. Batson was a black citizen, but he had no interest in serving as a juror and thus was not a member of the excluded class. His standing to vindicate the interests of potential black jurors was based on his status as a defendant.5 Indeed, the suggestion that only defendants of the same race or ethnicity as the excluded jurors can enforce the jurors’ right to equal treatment and equal respect recognized in Batson is itself inconsistent with the central message of the Equal Protection Clause.6
*508“[T]he Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State’s case.” Id., at 89. As Justice Kennedy states, while the inference that the discriminatory motiye is at work is stronger when the excluded jurors are of the same race or ethnicity as the defendant, the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges is not limited' to that situation but may be present when, as here, the excluded jurors are not of the same race as the defendant. Ante, at 490 (concurring opinion). Petitioner, however, was not permitted to present any evidence to support his claim because the state court ruled that he did not have standing to assert the rights of the excluded jurors. For the reasons stated by Justice Kennedy, that ruling was plainly wrong. My opinion, however, that petitioner should have been permitted to prove that the exclusion of black jurors violated the Equal Protection Clause also leads me to the conclusion that petitioner should be entitled to prove that the State has violated the fair-cross-section principle of the Sixth Amendment.
II
Fifteen years ago, in Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), we unambiguously held that “the American concept of *509the jury trial contemplates a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community.” Id., at 527. Although Taylor’s reliance on the Sixth Amendment was novel, the constitutional principle that it vindicated was ancient. Long before Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), held that the Sixth Amendment is applicable to the States, it was “part of the established tradition in the use of juries as instruments of public justice that the jury be a body truly representative of the community,” Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130 (1940), and exclusion of a cognizable group from jury service was considered to “contraven[e] the very idea of a jury,” Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320, 330 (1970).7 We stated over a century ago — and have often reiterated since— *510that a defendant is entitled to “an impartial jury trial, by jurors indifferently selected or chosen without discrimination against such jurors because of their color.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345 (1880) (citing Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880)). Just as the potential juror has the right not to be excluded from jury service solely on account of race, so “[a]n accused is entitled to have charges against him considered by a jury in the selection of which there has been neither inclusion nor exclusion because of race.” Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282, 287 (1950) (plurality opinion); see also id,., at 295 (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (“The prohibition of the Constitution against discrimination because of color does not require in and of itself the presence of a Negro on a jury. . . . The basis of selection cannot con*511sciously take color into account. Such is the command of the Constitution”).
The fair-cross-section principle is central to our understanding. of the Sixth Amendment. It has been upon the basis of the promise of the fair cross section that we have held that a six-person jury does not contravene the Constitution, see Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78, 102 (1970) (“As long as arbitrary exclusions of a particular class from the jury rolls are forbidden, see, e. g., Carter v. Jury Commission, 396 U. S. 320, 329-330 (1970), the concern that the cross-section will be significantly diminished if the jury is decreased in size from 12 to six seems an unrealistic one”), and that we have permitted nonunanimous verdicts, see Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404, 413 (1972) (opinion of White, J.) (“All that the Constitution forbids, however, is systematic exclusion of identifiable segments of the community from jury panels and from the juries ultimately drawn from those panels”) (emphasis added). It has also been on the basis of the fair-cross-section requirement that we have refused to scrutinize jury verdicts under the Equal Protection Clause, see McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 309-310 (1987) (“Because of the risk that the factor of race may enter the criminal justice process, we have engaged in ‘unceasing efforts’ to eradicate racial prejudice from our criminal justice system. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 85 (1986). Our efforts have been guided by our recognition that ‘the inestimable privilege of trial by jury ... is a vital principle, underlying the whole administration of criminal justice,’ Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2,123 (1866). Thus, it is the jury that is a criminal defendant’s fundamental ‘protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice.’ Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 309 (1880)”).8
*512The fair-cross-section requirement mandates the use of a neutral selection mechanism to generate a jury representative of the community. It does not dictate that any particular group or race have representation on a jury. See Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U. S. 162, 173, 178 (1986); Taylor, 419 U. S., at 538; Apodaca, 406 U. S., at 413 (opinion of White, J.); Cassell, 339 U. S., at 286-287. The Constitution does not permit the easy assumption that a community would be fairly represented by a jury selected by proportional representation of different races any more than it does that a community would be represented by a jury composed of quotas of jurors of different classes. Cf. Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 499-500 (1977); see also id., at 503 (Marshall, J., concurring).9 In fact, while a racially balanced jury would be representative of the racial groups in a community, the focus on race would likely distort the jury’s reflection of other groups in society, characterized by. age, sex, ethnicity, religion, education level, or economic class.10 What the Con*513stitution does require is “a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.” Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S., at 100; see also Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U. S., at 236-237 (plurality opinion); id., at 245 (White, J., concurring in judgment).
Our previous cases explain the operation of the fair-cross-section requirement. In Taylor, we held unconstitutional a state provision that required women, but not men, to file a written declaration before they were placed in the jury pool. Because the provision was directed at excluding a distinctive group from jury service and was not based on any legitimate state purpose, it ran afoul of the “defendant’s Sixth Amend*514ment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community.” 419 U. S., at 534. In Duren v. Missouri, 439 U. S. 357 (1979), a Missouri provision gave women an automatic exemption from jury service. Like the Louisiana provision in Taylor, Missouri’s automatic exemption resulted in underrepresentation of women at the venire stage and was justified only by the stereotype that most women would be unable to serve because of their domestic responsibilities. 439 U. S., at 369.11 We therefore held the provision unlawful.
Taylor and Duren insure that the jury pool and venire will be reasonably representative of the community. A reasonably representative jury pool, however, is not the ultimate goal of the Sixth Amendment: a State surely could not place all of its citizens in the jury pool, but then arbitrarily provide that members of certain cognizable groups would not be permitted to serve on a jury or could only serve if they overcame a special hurdle not applicable to other jurors. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused “an impartial jury,” not just an impartial jury venire or jury pool. The State may remove jurors at any stage on the grounds, among others, that service would cause hardship to the individual or community, see Taylor, 419 U. S., at 534; Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U. S. 638 (1906), or that the individual juror is unable to render an impartial verdict, see Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U. S., at 175; cf. Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202, 220 (1965) (“[T]he view in this country has been that the system should guarantee ‘not only freedom from any bias against the accused, but also from any prejudice against his prosecution’ ”) (quoting Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 70 (1887)). By the same token, however, the State may never arbitrarily remove jurors on a discriminatory basis unrelated to their ability to serve as jurors. Cf. Lockhart, 476 U. S., at 175. *515The Sixth Amendment’s protection is not so frail that it can be defeated by the State’s creation of an additional level of selection.12 Rather, by providing that juries be drawn through fair and neutral selection procedures from a broad cross section of the community, that Amendment insures a jury that will best reflect the views of the community — one that is not arbitrarily skewed for or against any particular group or characteristic.
Applying these principles, it is manifest that petitioner has stated a claim under the Sixth Amendment. Petitioner claimed at trial that the prosecutor systematically eliminated all the black jurors from his venire on the basis not that they were partial but that no black juror was competent to serve.13 The state courts rejected this claim without a hearing, holding that the exercise of peremptory challenges can never violate the fair-cross-section requirement. Prior to our decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), I assume that that ruling would have been correct and that petitioner’s *516argument would not have been successful. For Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965), had established a virtually ir-rebuttable presumption that “the prosecutor is using the State’s challenges to obtain a fair and impartial jury to try the case before the court.” Id., at 222. That presumption could not be overcome by the prosecutor’s use of perempto-ries to eliminate all the black jurors on the venire, ibid., but only by a showing that “the prosecutor in a county, in case after case, whatever the circumstances, whatever the crime and whoever the defendant or the victim may be, is responsible for the removal of Negroes who have been selected as qualified jurors by the jury commissioners and who have survived challenges for cause, with the result that no Negroes ever serve on petit juries.” Id., at 223. Under previous law, the Illinois Supreme Court and this Court would have been correct in presuming along with the Swain Court that all peremptory challenges are exercised for nondiscriminatory reasons.
Batson, however, created an important, though limited, exception to the Swain presumption. Under Batson, a defendant is permitted to establish from “the totality of relevant facts,” 476 U. S., at 94, that black jurors have been excluded on the basis of race and that the system of peremptory challenges has been operated in a discriminatory fashion. The peremptory challenge procedure, when it is used to remove members of a particular racial group, is no longer presumed to serve the State’s interest in obtaining a fair and impartial jury. If a defendant is able to prove for equal protection purposes that the prosecutor’s “strikes were based on the belief that no black citizen could be a satisfactory juror or fairly try” the case, id., at 101 (White, J., concurring), and that the State is operating a discriminatory “selection procedure,” id., at 87, that same showing necessarily establishes that the defendant does not have a fair possibility of obtaining a representative cross section for Sixth Amendment purposes. As we have explained, Batson has under*517pinnings both in the juror’s equal protection right to be free of discrimination and in the defendant’s right to a fair and impartial factfinder:
“By serving a criminal defendant’s interest in neutral jury selection procedures, the rule in Batson may have some bearing on the truthfinding function of a criminal trial. . . . Significantly, the new rule joins other procedures that protect a defendant’s interest in a neutral factfinder. Those other mechanisms existed prior to our decisions in Batson, creating a high probability that the individual jurors seated in a particular case were free from bias.” Allen v. Hardy, 478 U. S. 255, 259 (1986) (footnote omitted).
The operation of a facially neutral peremptory challenge procedure in a discriminatory manner is no less a violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury chosen from a fair cross section of the community than it is a violation of the juror’s right to equal protection.14
The Court rejects petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim on the basis of three assumptions, two explicit and one implicit. First, it asserts that the tradition of peremptory challenges for the prosecution was “venerable” at the time of the ratification of the Sixth Amendment and thereby presumably im*518mune from challenge. This assertion is both misleading15 and an insufficient response to petitioner’s claim that the State operated a system of discriminatory peremptory challenges. The Court has forsworn reliance on venerable history to give meaning to the Sixth Amendment’s numerosity and unanimity requirements, see Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972); Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970); the less venerable history of nondiscriminatory peremptory *519challenges surely cannot resolve any conflict between the fair-cross-section requirement and the exercise of discriminatory peremptory challenges.
Second, the Court contends that the exercise of peremptory challenges always serves the State’s “legitimate interest” in obtaining an impartial jury. Ante, at 483. That contention rests on the assumption that a black juror may be presumed to be partial simply because he is black — an assumption that is impermissible since Batson. Petitioner’s claim is that the State may not operate a jury selection mechanism, including a system of peremptory challenges, that eliminates black jurors solely on account of race.16 It hardly answers petitioner’s claim to state that the system of peremptory challenges “traditionally]” operates “by allowing both the accused and the State to eliminate persons thought to be inclined against their interests.” Ante, at 480.
Finally, the Court contends that recognition of the Sixth Amendment right “would cripple the device of peremptory challenge.” Ante, at 484. The same argument was made in Batson in the same context: a defendant’s claim that peremptory challenges were used to discriminate against black jurors. After our recognition that a defendant could bring an *520equal protection challenge to the removal of black jurors in a single case, it is difficult to see why recognition of a Sixth Amendment right would impose any additional burden. In any event, our answer to the State in Batson is a sufficient response to the Court here:
“While we recognize, of course, that the peremptory challenge occupies an important position in our trial procedures, we do not agree that our decision today will undermine the contribution the challenge generally makes to the administration of justice. The reality of practice, amply reflected in many state- and federal-court opinions, shows that the challenge may be, and unfortunately at times has been, used to discriminate against black jurors. ■ By requiring trial courts to be sensitive to the racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges, our decision enforces the mandate of equal protection and furthers the ends of justice. In view of the heterogeneous population of our Nation, public respect for our criminal justice system and the rule of law will be strengthened if we ensure that no citizen is disqualified from jury service because of his race.
“Nor are we persuaded by the State’s suggestion that our holding will create serious administrative difficulties. In those States applying a version of the eviden-tiary standard we recognize today, courts have not experienced serious administrative burdens, and the peremptory challenge system has survived. We decline, however, to formulate particular procedures to be followed upon a defendant’s timely objection to a prosecutor’s challenges.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S., at 98-99 (footnotes omitted).
I respectfully dissent.

 Illinois provides two methods of drawing petit jurors —both random— for single county circuits and other than single county circuits respectively. The provision applicable to petitioner’s case, Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 78, ¶32.1 (1987), provides in pertinent part:
“In single county circuits, the chief judge of the circuit court of the county shall certify to the clerk of the court the number of petit jurors required each month. The clerk shall then repair to the office of the jury commissioners and there, in the presence of the persons mentioned in Section 8 of this Act, proceed to draw by lot the necessary number of names from those made available for such drawing as in Section 8 of this act provided.”
The record is somewhat unclear as to the number of prospective jurors drawn for petitioner’s petit jury. See Brief for Petitioner 2 (30, 35, or 40 prospective jurors).

 Ill. Rev. Stat., eh. 78, ¶31 (1987):
“In such manner as may be prescribed by rules to be adopted by majority vote of said judges, the jury commissioners shall also:
“(a) From time to time prepare a secondary list to be known as the active jury list, containing such number of names taken from the general jury list, not less than 5% of the aggregate thereof, as shall be appointed by the said *505rules, and in addition thereto, such other lists, to be known as period jury lists, as the said rules may require. Such period jury lists, if provided for, shall contain the names of prospective jurors who shall have indicated, either before or after being summoned for jury duty, at what time of the year they would most conveniently serve. The active jury list and, except as to the names of persons certified back by the clerk of the court as provided in Section 10 of this act, the period jury lists, shall be prepared by selecting every twentieth name, or other whole number rate necessary to obtain the number required, or, in counties having a population greater than 1,000,000, in a manner prescribed by the judge in charge of jury selection, from the general jury list which shall be arranged by towns or precincts for this purpose. The count shall run continuously rather than starting over with each town or precinct.”

 ¶25:
“The said commissioners upon entering upon the duties of their office, and every 4 years thereafter, shall prepare a list of all legal voters or if they desire it may include the Illinois driver’s license holders of each town or precinct of the county possessing the necessary legal qualifications for jury duty, to be known as the jury list. The list may be revised and amended annually in the discretion of the commissioners.”
At the time of petitioner’s trial, Illinois provided exemptions, common to many States, for public officials, practicing physicians, and practicing attorneys, among others. ¶4 (repealed 1987).

 Just as the State in Batson argued that the Equal Protection Clause was central to petitioner’s argument, so the State here has argued that petitioner’s claim is an equal protection argument in disguise and that, as such, it is not meritorious. See Brief for Respondent 20-21, 24-27. I *507agree that the two claims overlap; indeed, the requirement of impartiality is, in a sense, the mirror image of a prohibition against discrimination.

 Although we stated in Batson that the defendant’s right to have jurors ‘“indifferently chosen,”’ 476 U. S., at 87 (quoting 4 Blackstone, Commentaries 350 (Cooley ed. 1899)), was also implicated by the discriminatory selection mechanism, we declined to rest our decision on the defendant’s personal right to an impartial jury. 476 U. S., at 85, n. 4.

 As one commentator has noted:
“If defendants were allowed to challenge the exclusion only of members of their own races, a defendant whose grandparents were black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native-American apparently would be permitted to challenge *508the exclusion of members of all of these groups. A defendant whose ancestry was less diverse would have less power to object to a prosecutor’s racial discrimination. In determining precisely what ancestry would qualify a defendant as black, white, brown or red, courts might find guidance in some older decisions of states that practiced de jure segregation, in the opinions of South African tribunals, and in the precedents of Nazi Germany.” Alschuler, The Supreme Court and the Jury: Voir Dire, Peremptory Challenges, and the Review of Jury Verdicts, 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 153, 191-192 (1989) (footnote omitted).
See also Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 596, n. 8 (1976) (“In our heterogeneous society policy as well as constitutional considerations militate against the divisive assumption — as a per se rule — that justice in a court of law may turn upon the pigmentation of skin, the accident of birth, or the choice of religion”).

 Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), relied on eases decided in the exercise of our supervisory power over the federal courts, as well as cases decided under the Equal Protection Clause. See Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187 (1946); Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220 (1946) (“The American tradition of trial by jury, considered in connection with either criminal or civil proceedings, necessarily contemplates an impartial jury drawn from a cross-section of the community. This does not mean, of course, that every jury must contain representatives of all the economic, social, religious, racial, political and geographical groups of the community; frequently such complete representation would be impossible. But it does mean that prospective jurors shall be selected by court officials without systematic and intentional exclusion of any of these groups. Recognition must be given to the fact that those eligible for jury service are to be found in every stratum of society. Jury competence is an individual rather than a group or class matter. That fact lies at the very heart of the jury system. To disregard it is to open the door to class distinctions and discriminations which are abhorrent to the democratic ideals of trial by jury”); Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 85-86 (1942) (“[T]he proper functioning of the jury system, and, indeed, our democracy itself, requires that the jury be a ‘body truly representative of the community,’ and not the organ of any special group or class. If that requirement is observed, the officials charged with choosing federal jurors may exercise some discretion to the end that competent jurors may be called. But they must not allow the desire for competent jurors to lead them into selections which do not comport with the concept of the jury as a cross-section of the community. Tendencies, no matter how slight, toward the selection of jurors by any method other than a process which will insure a trial by a representative *510group are undermining processes weakening the institution of jury trial, and should be sturdily resisted”).
It should not be surprising that the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury as “an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge,” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 156, guarantees not only impartial jurors but also procedural safeguards such as a selection mechanism that is fair and permits the judgment of the community to be brought to bear on the case. Our law recognizes as much in several other respects. Even though each individual juror might be impartial, the Sixth Amendment still requires that the jury have at least six members, Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U. S. 223 (1978), that the verdict be agreed upon by at least five jurors, Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U. S. 130 (1979), and that the defendant be accorded voir dire, Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S. 28, 36 (1986). See also Tanner v. United States, 483 U. S. 107, 127 (1987) (noting procedural safeguards that protect Sixth Amendment right to impartial jury). So it is with the fair-cross-section requirement. Although that requirement is not expressed in the text of the Sixth Amendment, it is inherent in its purpose that the defendant be judged by a body fairly selected and fully independent of the State. Indeed, in his first Inaugural Address, President Thomas Jefferson identified among the “principles [that] form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation,” that of “trial by juries impartially selected." 3 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 322 (Memorial ed. 1903) (emphasis added).

 Our decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279 (1987), should dispel any doubt that the fair-cross-seetion requirement and the prohibition against racial discrimination in the selection of juries expressed in such eases as Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), does not exist only to *512protect black defendants. We there held that the jury system and the fair-cross-section principle were designed to eliminate any discrimination in the imposition of sentence based on the race of the victim.

 See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 88 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (“A prediction based on a racial characteristic is not necessarily more reliable than a prediction based on some other group characteristic. ... In the long run there is no more certainty that individual members of racial groups will vote alike than that members of other identifiable groups will do so”); Cousins v. City Council of Chicago, 466 F. 2d 830, 852 (CA7) (dissenting opinion) (“Respect for the citizenry in the black community compels acceptance of the fact that in the long run there is no more certainty that these individuals will vote alike than will individual members of any other ethnic, economic, or social group”), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 893 (1972).

 As one commentator has explained:
“So many identifiable interests have already emerged that the mathematical problems are almost insurmountable. The computer attempting to structure each jury would have to consider the race, sex, age, income, occupation, educational level, and religion of each juror — and perhaps other factors as well — in order to be sure that all relevant demographic *513characteristics would be considered. Furthermore, a juror selected under this system might feel that she or he is filling some predetermined ‘slot’ and might attempt to give the view generally associated with those demographic characteristics rather than the juror’s personal feelings about the case. The jurors might find it harder to work together as a group because they may be more conscious of their identified differences than the much stronger common bonds that unite them as people.
“The logical, and desirable, way to impanel an impartial and representative jury — and the method chosen by Congress —is to put together a complete list of eligible jurors and select randomly from it, on the assumption that the laws of statistics will produce representative juries most of the time. This approach safeguards the selection process from possible manipulation and ensures the independence of the jury. Such a randomly selected jury will not necessarily be ‘impartial’ in the strict sense of that term, because the jurors bring to the jury box prejudice and perspectives gained from their lifetimes of experience. But they will be impartial in the sense that they will reflect the range of the community’s attitudes, which is the best we can do. The random approach recognizes that our ‘community’ has enlarged because of the technological revolution that has provided us with communication links and common sources of information, but it also ensures that the diversity within our society is reflected on our juries because each population group is represented insofar as possible in proportion to its strength in the population.” J. Van Dyke, Jury Selection Procedures 18 (1977).
Cf. Amar, Choosing Representatives by Lottery Voting, 93 Yale L. J. 1283, 1288-1289, 1293 (1984) (choice of jurors by random selection best replicates underlying distribution of views in community).

 As then-JusTiCE Rehnquist noted in Duren, our analysis under the Sixth Amendment bore a marked similarity to analysis under the Equal Protection Clause. 439 U. S., at 371 (dissenting opinion).

 For example, if a State passed a statute mandating voir dire examination of all male white venirepersons before any female or black venire-persons, that statute would violate the Sixth Amendment as well as the Equal Protection Clause. Cf. Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128 (1940). The statute would have an obvious tendency “systematically” to exclude female and black citizens from the petit jury directly contrary to the teaching of our Sixth Amendment cases.

 Petitioner also claimed that the jury venire and jury did not fairly represent the proportion of black persons in the community. App. 12-13. To the extent that his Sixth Amendment claim is based on the contention that the State prevented a “distinctive group in the community from being represented on his jury,” ante, at 477-478, I agree with the Court that a defendant is not entitled to jurors of any particular race on his jury. The Sixth Amendment no more permits the prosecutor to remove a white juror on the categorical assumption that he will not represent the views of prospective black jurors than it permits the prosecutor to remove a black juror on the assumption that he is incompetent to serve. In both instances, the prosecutor would be determining qualification to serve on the basis of race, a determination that the prosecutor is not permitted to make. Cf. Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282, 287 (1950) (plurality opinion); id., at 295 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

 Justice Simon, dissenting in the Illinois Supreme Court, properly recognized the significance of our decision in Batson:
“Under the sixth amendment, a defendant is entitled to a fair cross-section of the community on the jury. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975). This has been interpreted to guarantee that the jury venire be selected in a nondiscriminatory manner from a source fairly representative of the community, even though Taylor does not go so far as to guarantee a representative petit jury. But as already mentioned, Batson has added an additional dimension to this analysis: although a petit jury selected from a proper panel need not necessarily reflect a cross-section of the community, discriminatory tactics designed to manipulate the ultimate composition of the petit jury will no longer be tolerated.” 121 Ill. 2d 136, 184-185, 520 N. E. 2d 270, 292 (1987).

 Even as to the use of peremptory challenges to remove partial jurors, the Court’s historical claims are significantly overstated. If the Court wishes to have it that the exercise of peremptory challenges by the prosecution has a venerable tradition, it will have to do better than Blackstone and the 1790 Congress. What Blackstone actually said with respect to peremptory challenges was that peremptory challenges were allowed the prisoner “in criminal cases, or at least in capital ones, ... in favorem vitae," but that “[t]his privilege, of peremptory challenges, though granted to the prisoner, is denied to the king, by the statute of 33 Edw. I. st. 4, which enacts, that the king shall challenge no jurors without assigning a cause certain, to be tried and approved by the court.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 346-347 (1769). The statute passed by the 1790 Congress, Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, § 30, 1 Stat. 119, similarly recognized the defendant’s right of peremptory challenges, but was silent with respect to the government’s. See United States v. Shackleford, 18 How. 588 (1856). Although United States v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 480 (1827), suggests that the government’s common-law right to “stand aside” survived the 1790 Act, the Court has rejected the proposition that the 1790 Act reflects or “draws” with it the prosecutor’s right of peremptory challenge. See 18 How., at 590. Contrary to the Court’s contention, the prosecutor has not had the right of peremptory challenge “through two centuries in all the States.” Ante, at 481. The exercise of peremptory challenges by the prosecution was a subject of debate throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and the two most populous States in the Nation’s first century, New York and Virginia, did not permit the prosecutor peremptories until 1881 and 1919 respectively. See Van Dyke, supra, n. 10, at 147-150, 167; see also Goldwasser, Limiting a Criminal Defendant’s Use of Peremptory Challenges: On Symmetry and the Jury in a Criminal Trial, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 808, 827-828 (1989). It is also worthy of note that a clause providing the “right of challenge” was contained within the original draft of the Sixth Amendment but was eliminated by the Senate prior to ratification. See 1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789).

 The Court misconstrues petitioner’s claim as one that the Sixth Amendment requires representation of all identifiable groups on the petit jury. Ante, at 484. Petitioner, however, makes no such claim. The Sixth Amendment does not forbid the State to remove jurors on the basis of partiality or other relevant individual characteristics. Even if the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges based on such considerations, when aggregated, could be considered to result in the exclusion of a “cognizable group,” that group by definition would be one that is ineligible for jury service for legitimate state reasons. The defendant’s right to “a fair possibility” for obtaining a representative cross section would not be impaired. Petitioner does argue, however, that the State may not remove jurors for unconstitutional reasons or reasons relevant only to eliminating a group from the community eligible for jury service. That is, the State may not remove jurors solely on account of race. In that case, the defendant is being “unfairly” deprived of the opportunity for obtaining a cross section.