Martin

[Opinion certified for partial publication. [*] ]

OPINION

DOSSEE, J.

Defendant appeals from his conviction of petty theft with a prior conviction for theft and raises two claims of error: (1) the prosecutor improperly exercised a peremptory challenge to remove a potential Black juror because she was a Jehovah's Witness and (2) the trial court erroneously instructed the jury to draw adverse inferences from defendant's failure to explain the evidence against him. We find no error and affirm the judgment.

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(1) In People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 [ 148 Cal. Rptr. 890 , 583 P.2d 748 ], the California Supreme Court held that the use of peremptory challenges to remove prospective jurors on the sole ground of group bias violates the right to trial by jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. Likewise, the United States Supreme Court, while rejecting the "fair cross-section" theory ( Holland v. Illinois (1990) 493 U.S. 474 [ 110 S.Ct. 803 , 107 L.Ed.2d 905 ]), has condemned peremptory challenges on the basis of group bias as a violation of the right to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. ( Batson…