Whether a court reviewing a Batson claim may consider reasons distinguishing stricken jurors from those accepted by the prosecutor when the prosecutor did not cite the distinguishing reason in the trial court as a basis for the strike

QUESTIONS PRESENTED During jury selection for Johnny Duane Miles’s capital murder trial, the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to remove every Black prospective juror from the main panel, including Simeon Greene—a Black man with pro-prosecution views. Defense counsel objected that the State had removed Mr. Greene because he was Black, and the trial court ruled that defense counsel had presented a sufficient prima facie case of discrimination. The prosecutor then proffered three justifications for striking Mr. Greene, and the trial court overruled defense counsel’s objection. On appeal, Mr. Miles argued—relying on Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 241 (2005)—that the trial court erred in accepting the prosecutor’s justifications because they were pretextual. Among other evidence of pretext, Mr. Miles pointed to a comparative juror analysis that showed the prosecutor had accepted non-Black jurors who provided answers like Mr. Greene’s. The California Supreme Court agreed with Mr. Miles that some of the prosecutor’s stated reasons for striking Mr. Greene also applied to three non-Black jurors whom the prosecutor did not strike. But the court rejected the probative value of these comparisons based on two longstanding California doctrines. First, the court ruled that one of the comparisons lacked probative value because the prosecutor may have decided to keep the seated juror for a reason that the prosecutor had not proffered. Next, the court ruled that the two ii remaining comparisons lacked probative value because those jurors had not provided answers that matched the prosecutor’s other justifications for striking Mr. Greene. Based on these rulings, the court rejected Mr. Miles’s jury discrimination claim and affirmed his conviction and death sentence. The questions presented on appeal are: 1. Whether a court reviewing a Batson claim may consider reasons distinguishing stricken jurors from those accepted by the prosecutor when the prosecutor did not cite the distinguishing reason in the trial court as a basis for the strike? 2. Whether, for purposes of comparative juror analysis, the jurors being compared must have expressed the same combination of responses in all material respects for the comparison to have significant probative value?