Race-Neutral Reason for Peremptory Challenge

During the voi dire / jury selection process, a party is entitled to 3 peremptory challenges. This means a party can strike prospective jurors for any race-neutral reason. There are times where a party uses a peremptory challenge to strike a juror and the opponent believes the peremptory challenge is being used for a racially motivated reason (i.e., to strike a particular prospective juror due to that juror’s race or ethnicity). Even when the proponent of the peremptory challenge explains the race-neutral reason for the challenge, the opponent believes that the race-neutral reason is merely a pretext. The Second District Court...