Hicks

DISCUSSION

Hicks’s only contention on appeal is that by allowing the prosecutor’s peremptory challenge of an African-American juror, the court violated his right “ ‘to trial by a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community under article I, section 16 of the state Constitution’ ” and “ ‘ “to

3 equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.” ’ ”2 (People v. Taylor (2010) 48 Cal.4th 574, 611.) In response, the Attorney General asserts that substantial evidence supported the trial court’s decision to allow the peremptory challenge finding that the prosecutor’s stated reasons for striking the juror were valid and race neutral. I Additional Background During the general voir dire of the jury panel, the juror in question fielded two questions from trial counsel. The prosecutor asked her whether she could convict the defendant, if the evidence showed his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, even if she did not like the victim of the crime. She responded that whether she liked the victim would not influence her decision and explained that as a former prison nurse, she made a conscious decision not to look at the reasons for her patients’ incarceration because she did…