Whether a district court has an obligation to inquire of the prosecution as to the substance behind their stated reasons as to why they used a peremptory challenge to strike the only African-American in the venire

QUESTIONS PRESENTED I. Whether a district court has an obligation to inquire of the prosecution as to the substance behind their stated reasons as to why they used a peremptory challenge to strike the only African-American in the venire, even though the challenging defendant accepted the prosecution’s conclusory statements for so striking and thereupon withdrew their objection to the striking. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 94 (1986) 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69, 54 U.S.L.W. 4425 ( an appellant “may make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination by showing that the totality of the relevant facts gives rise to an inference of discriminatory purpose.”); Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 404 (1990), 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2D 411, 59 U.S.L.W. 4268 (a defendant has “the right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected by nondiscriminatory criteria.”). II. Whether the District Court erred in admitting evidence as to the number of pending prior convictions, on the grounds that Federal Rule of Evidence 609(e) violates due process under the Fourteenth Amendment, when two of the admitted convictions subsequently were overturned by the First Circuit Court of Appeals on remand from the United States Supreme Court -i