Peremptory Juror Strike Based on Education Upheld (Correct)

A Maine prosecutor didn’t violate a defendant’s constitutional rights when she struck the only person of color in the jury pool from the jury because he had an 11th-grade education, the First Circuit said.

Deferring to the state court’s conclusion that the prosecutor’s explanation wasn’t pretext for racial bias, the opinion by Judge Kermit V. Lipez said that Malik Hollis wasn’t entitled to a writ of habeas corpus.

But in a separate concurrence Lipez said that “strikes based on a juror’s level of education in the absence of a clear connection to the case’s complexity may come perilously close to ...