Ali

I. Background

A. Jury Selection

On November 8, 1999, the State of California charged Mohammed Ali with the first-degree murder of his girlfriend, Tracey Biletnikoff. Ali entered a plea of not guilty, and stood trial.

During the jury selection process, the state prosecutor used two of his peremptory challenges to strike the only African- Americans in the jury pool, first striking M.C.2 and then Dar- rell Jefferson. Ali’s trial counsel challenged both these strikes in turn under People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal.3d 258, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748 (1978) (California’s equivalent of Batson), requesting an evidentiary hearing on the issue of the prosecu- tor’s motive. After the prosecutor struck Jefferson, the trial judge granted the request.

At the ensuing hearing the prosecutor provided the follow- ing explanation for his strike of M.C.:

M.C. — yesterday, I exercised my challenge there for the following reasons: We had an out-of-the- presence-of-the-jurors discussion with her about pri- 1 Ali also raised several ineffective assistance of counsel claims in his habeas petition. Because we grant Ali’s petition based on his Batson chal- lenge, we do not reach these additional…