United States v. Cesar Yap Changco

We consider how a defendant goes about establishing that a prosecutor’s race-neutral justifications for a peremptory strike are pre-textual.

Background

Changco was convicted by a jury of robbing a Post Office, carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and kidnapping. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 924 (c)(1), 1201(a)(5), 2114. Although neither the government nor the defendant challenged any member of the venire for cause, each side exercised peremptory challenges. At issue are two of the prosecution’s peremptory strikes — Maldia and Delacruz. Upon initial questioning by the court, Maldia stated that she performed data entry at a financing company, was married with children, had a high school education and regularly read Reader’s Digest. Delacruz was a full-time student at Cal-State University, Los Angeles, majoring in Spanish; she was a Vogue reader. The government exercised its first peremptory challenge to strike Delacruz, and its third to strike Maldia. At that point, defense counsel objected on the ground that the prosecution had struck “two minority women.” RT 9/3/91 at 73. After hearing the prosecutor’s explanations, the court upheld the strikes.

Changco appeals this ruling. He…